foodha for thought – menuism blog

As many of you may know, we’ve changed the format of the Menuism Restaurant Reviewer Contest.  Basically, winners be will be decided based on the number of helpful votes for the reviews they’ve written in the given month with awards going to the top 3 users with the most helpful votes, but did you know that there’s a way for you to keep track of Menuism’ers occupying the top 3 spots?  Yup, Menuism has actually set a leaderboard.  To access it, the first step is to sign on to your Menuism account and towards the top of the screen, you’ll see a dark green tab that states “Write a review – Win $$$”.  Click on it and it’ll take you to that leaderboard.

The first thing you’ll read is information again about how the contest works, as is seen below.

Then comes the fun part.  You can actually see who is in the running for the three different prizes.  Currently, grubalicioussf and CheapEthnicEatz are running neck to neck with 46  total helpful votes.  Since they are both tied in regards to the total helpful votes, the tie breaker becomes the number of reviews.  In this case, grubalicioussf is number 1 because she has 12 reviews as opposed to 11; however, if CheapEthnicEatz scores more helpful reviews or posts more reviews, that will definitely put her on top.  One great example I want to give you is that while you increase your chances by having multiple reviews, sometimes it takes just one  that readers find very helpful to grab a lot of votes.  For example, jen76 only posted 1 review and garnered 13 helpful votes and look, she’s in 5th place.

So how do you get those helpful votes? In the end, it’s all about quality, not quantity.  Your reviews don’t  have to be novel length, but as long as readers are able to find something that can help them make informed decisions about where to spend their dining dollars, you’ve definitely accomplished something.  Other things you could do could include giving individual dish reviews, uploading pictures and along with your informative review, those will definitely get you those “helpful votes.” May’s contest ends in 11 days, so you still have a chance.  Good luck!

Congratulations to Mike aka Mike_Ratto for submitting the winning review for the April Menuism Restaurant Review Contest!  His posting about Mexico DF in San Francisco, CA came about because he was back in his old stomping grounds for business.  Since he already knew the area, he was able to bring together friends from San Francisco and new friends from Seattle, the town he’s living in now, for a fantastic meal.  To read Mike’s review, click here. To find out more about Mike and his thoughts on food, please read his bio below:

Hello all. My name is Mike Ratto and I am a recent grad from a school focusing on art and animation. Having grown up in a large Italian family food has been an important part of my life. Many gatherings of family and friends revolve around food. While I have not been to many restaurants that can match that home feel I continue to search and find many great places along the way.

Food is art and I love to sample all of the fine artworks the world has to offer. I always like to keep an open mind and journey headstrong into new cuisine. There are many places that I go often, and many places I have yet to visit. No matter how big or small a restaurant or shop is, I hope to catalog them all so that others can enjoy the same experiences I have.

So if any of you are ever in the Bay Area in California, or the Seattle area in Washington I hope you can use my reviews as a guide to some great food.

Thanks to Mike for sharing his experience with us and because he put fingers to keyboard and submitted his review, Matt has won a $200 Gift Card and a Menuism T-Shirt.  If you’d like a chance to win one of three prizes for the May Menuism Restaurant Reviewer Contest,  click here for more info and Good Luck to You!

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager

We’re less than halfway through 2009 and now it’s time for a change, at least when it comes to the Menuism Restaurant Review Contest. This time around, there’s more chances to win with both 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes that are available.   Also, the criteria for winning entries will be on how helpful other Menuism’ers find your reviews to be.  So what makes a review helpful?  Check out a past Menuism article called 5 Tips Towards Writing a Great Review for some ideas or you can even  emulate some of our Featured Reviewers, who have done a fantastic job sharing their dining stories with all of us.

In the end, it’s all about quality, not quantity.  Your reviews don’t  have to be novel length, but as long as readers are able to find something that can help them make informed decisions about where to spend their dining dollars, you’ve definitely accomplished something.  Other things you could do could include giving dish reviews and uploading pictures and along with your informative review, those will definitely get you those “helpful votes.”

Now it’s time to get out, dine out and than get your fingers a-typing.  With a total of $175.00 in prize money, think of what you can do with any part of those dollars  Enjoy a Sunday brunch.   Purchase a lovely bottle of wine.  Get that new kitchen gadget you’ve been eyeing. You won’t have a chance of winning, if you don’t even try, so let’s see what you got.

Menuism Restaurant Review Contest

How to Enter:

• Dine out and than post your restaurant review to the Menuism website.  There are no limits to the number of reviews per month. No need to manually submit your reviews to the contest

Restaurant Review Criteria:

• Winners be will be decided based on the number of helpful votes for the reviews they’ve written in the given month with awards going to the top 3 users with the most helpful votes.

Announcement of Winner and Prize:

• After the contest due date, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place Winners will be  announced the first week of the following month.

• PRIZES:
  • 1st: $100
  • 2nd: $50
  • 3rd: $25
  • Profile Badge for Each Winner!

Rules:

• Reviews that are considered inappropriate, vulgar or lacking information will not be considered.
• Winners who do not claim their prize within 7 days of the announcement of the winner will forfeit prize money, but not the award.

Ready to get started? Sign up for your free Menuism account and start writing reviews!

May is now here, so we’d definitely love to see all of your great quality reviews. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line at abby@menuism.com.

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager

Congratulations to Kimberly aka writingkimberly for submitting the winning review for the March Menuism Restaurant Review Contest!  Her posting about El Paragua Restaurant in Espanola, NM came about because she got a tip from a 40-year Espanola local, which is why it’s always good to ask the locals for the best places to eat.  At El Paragua, Kimberly got not only a fantastic meal, but at a price that won’t give you the recession blues.  To read Kimberly’s review, click here. To find out more about Kimberly and her thoughts on food, please read her bio below:

I would never use a word like “foodie,” although I do have a healthy appreciation for a great meal! Since I’m a pragmatist, I especially love high quality, affordable meals. I particularly enjoy international cuisine. I am a champion of all things burrito, and usually seek out vegetarian food.

I’m a lawyer and a writer, so judging restaurants and writing about my opinions is second nature. A quality dining experience isn’t just about the food, though; it’s also about the ambiance, the menu, and the company. I’ve found that I can be just as satisfied by a $5 burger as by a $25 risotto, depending on the context and quality of the preparation and ingredients.

One of my favorite things about eating out is incorporating key principles of great meals I’ve been served into my own cooking at home. Feed me a fish, and I’m full for the day. Teach me how to prepare it and, well you know how the saying goes!

Thanks to Kimberly for sharing her experience with us and because she put her fingers to keyboard and submitted her review, Kimberly has won a $200 Gift Card and a Menuism T-Shirt.  If you’d like a chance to win April’s Menuism Restaurant Review Contest,  click here for more info and Good Luck to You!

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager

Spring is here and with it, there are many more opportunities for patio dining.  So with the sunny weather coming our way, we’d love to find out about some of your favorite restaurants where you can dine outside and either enjoy the sunny blue skies or where you can dine under the stars.  Of course, if you’d like to share reviews about some of your other favorite eateries, I know that other Menuism’ers would love to read about those as well.  We want to hear it all and each review automatically becomes an entry to the contest.

So after you stop and smell the flowers,  start typing and who knows, your review may just win you a $200 Gift Card.  Think of what you can do with that gift card.  Take a cooking class.  Purchase a lovely bottle of wine.  Maybe, you’ve been eyeing some new kitchen gadgets.  However, you won’t have a chance of winning, if you don’t even try.  So keep dining out and sharing your experiences with other Menuism’ers and who knows?  That gift card may be just within reach.

Menuism Restaurant Review Contest

How to Enter:

• Write as many reviews as you’d like. Each eligible review is automatically entered into the contest and counts as an entry into the drawing. No need to manually submit your reviews to the contest
• Entries are eligible starting the first day of the month up to the last day to enter the last day of the month.

Restaurant Review Criteria:

• Reviews have to have at least 2 positive helpful votes.
• Reviews have to have a minimum of 50 words (about 5 lines of text).

Announcement of Winner and Prize:

• After the contest due date, all eligible entries fitting the restaurant review criteria will be put into a drawing with the winner being announced the first week of the following month.
• Prize: $200 Gift Card, Menuism T-Shirt and Badge on Your Profile

Rules:

• Reviews that are considered inappropriate, vulgar or lacking information will not be considered.
• Winners who do not claim their prize within 7 days of the announcement of the winner will forfeit their prize.

Ready to get started? Sign up for your free Menuism account and start writing reviews!

April is now here, so we’d definitely love to see all of your great quality reviews. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line at abby@menuism.com.

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager

Congratulations to Tina aka tinajean for submitting the winning review for the February Menuism Restaurant Review Contest!  Her posting about New Delhi Restaurant in San Francisco, CA was informative and in it, she claims that this restaurant has the best Chicken Tandoori she’s ever had.  To read Tina’s review, click here. To find out more about Tina and her thoughts on food, please read her bio below:

My name is Tina and I live in Los Angeles, the most eclectic food paradise in the world. First off, a little about myself. After a lifetime of loving and experimenting with food I wanted to find out if I had the ability to take it to the next level. I began formal culinary training at Le Cordon Bleu at The California School Culinary Arts in Pasadena, CA. graduating with an Associates of Occupational Studies Degree in 2007. An internship at Krust led to working briefly at Madame Chocolate in Beverly Hills and Valerie’s Confections in Silverlake, CA. I continued my “choco-cation” later in 2007 with an emphasis on chocolate work by enrolling in Downey’s Chocolate in Laguna Nigel, Ca. and completing their Chocolate and Confection Course.

I’ve been lucky to have met wonderful and creative people along the way that have opened my head to the fact that food can be tasty and artistic at the same time. I love to follow the process from farm to plate as I truly believe that people would be a lot more choosey about what they eat if they knew where it came from.
My favorite places are Pizzeria Mozza for their inspired flavor combinations, Boulevard in San Francisco for their comfortable consistency and Square One Dining to get the day off to a great start.

Thanks to Tina for sharing her experience with us and because she put her fingers to keyboard and submitted her review, Tina has won a $200 Gift Card and a Menuism T-Shirt.  If you’d like a chance to win March’s Menuism Restaurant Review Contest,  click here for more info and Good Luck to You!

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager

Congratulations to Carl aka ctwistedpair for submitting the winning review for the January Menuism Restaurant Review Contest!  His posting about Kum Gang San in Flushing, NY really gave a great description of the dishes he had for his meal as well info as to what expect from Korean dining.   To read Carl’s review, click here. To find out more about Carl and his thoughts on food, please read his bio below:

Thanks to Carl for sharing his experience with us and because he put his fingers to keyboard and submitted his review, Carl has won a $200 Gift Card and a Menuism T-Shirt.  If you’d like a chance to win February’s Menuism Restaurant Review Contest, time’s running out so be sure to click here for more info and Good Luck to You!

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager

Congratulations to Eric aka firemenknowfood for submitting the winning review for the December Menuism Restaurant Review Contest!  His posting about T-Bonz Steakhouse of Augusta in Augusta, Georgia was great.  Eric gave some great info about this restaurant and some lovely detail about the dishes themselves.   To read Eric’s review, click here. To find out more about Eric and his thoughts on food, please read his bio below:

Thank you very much for selecting me as winner of the December 2008 contest, it is quite an honor. I’m glad that I could help people that live and visit the community that I love so much. Every year, our area gets bombarded with tourists that come to watch golf’s finest battle it out at the PGA Masters. I like to think that I’m doing my part to make sure that things run smoothly and people know the tastiest places as well as which places they should steer clear.

My first job was in a restaurant. The River Inn was a cozy french cuisine restaurant that was the cultural epicenter of a small town near Roanoke, VA. I was a dishwasher, but the chef, Eugene Fesquet, often called on me to help prep cook when things got busy. He always used to tell me that the very health and happiness of everyone that walks through the door depends on those that handle their food. He taught me do have pride in my cooking, to critique everything, its freshness, its cleanliness, its taste, it all depended on MY ability to be a part of the kitchen’s team. When Eugene died of cancer, I lost a mentor, a job, and a friend, but I did not loose my love for bringing people together through the international language of food.

My career path has changed vastly since my first job, but I still do my part in the kitchen at the fire station. I want the men I work with to eat fresh and clean food and if its not delicious, you can bet I’m going to hear about it, but that’s okay, critisism is evaluation and without it we become lazy and complacent. Thank you once again for the incredible honor. There are still tons of places in the Central Savannah River Area that need my evaluation and its my pleasure to give them to you.

Thanks to Eric for sharing his experience with us and because he put his fingers to keyboard and submitted his review, Eric has won a $200 Gift Card and a Menuism T-Shirt.  If you’d like a chance to win January’s Menuism Restaurant Review Contest, time’s running out so be sure to click here for more info and Good Luck to You!

By Abby C. Abanes
Menuism Community Manager