Perhaps one of the most "head-slapping, why didn't I think of it mash-ups" is the MenuDB web application, which currently only hosts scanned menus from restaurants situated in Ottawa and Kingston. It has an intuitive web 2.0 interface (AJAX-ified) that features a Google Maps widget with tags to all restaurants for which the application has menus. Click on a tag and MenuDB renders a webpage with the name of the restaurant, its address, its phone number, and its menu.

MenuDB organizes restaurants according to categories ( "Asian", "Carribean", "Casual", "Pizza", "Spanish", "Thai", etc.), and by location ("Downtown", "Lowertown", "Market", "Nepean", "Somerset", "Chinatown" and "Vanier"). One of the most useful features has to be the fact that the team that maintains the web application also stores the hours for each restaurant. MenuDB tells you whether or not a restaurant is open, whenever you select one for display.

Here is a link to the Ottawa version. There are tags everywhere!
Here is a link to the Kingston version. Not surprisingly, the majority of tags are along Princess Street.

Cheers, to the developers. This is a bloody good idea!



Bookmark with: