Sharing a meal is one of the single most common social encounters in which individuals take part. So it should be no surprise that a growing group of sites have digitized many parts of the process- from finding a restaurant to sharing experiences or even finding a friend to eat with. This week’s Friday Five is dedicated to the kind of restaurant resources you can access from anywhere.

OpenTable

Boasting 13,000 restaurants worldwide as users, OpenTable fundamentally changed the way diners planned evenings out while also offering value to restaurants in the form of table management without devoting extra energy to manning phone lines. As of June 2010, OpenTable has entered into a partnership with the restaurant review site Yelp, integrating review pages with easy-to-book reservations.

iDine

iDine’s entire model is built around viewing diners as shareholders- going so far as to give cash back when diners eat at participating restaurants more than once. Along the way, users earn frequent flyer mileage and can manage account settings or read reviews from other members online.

Tasting Table

Tasting Table’s tagline is “Food Culture Daily” and it lives up to the it with a wide range of food-related content across the board. Highlighting everything from individual restaurants to recipes to “gastronomic experiences,” this is essentially a rich blog offering a taste of everything.

Toptable

Toptable is a UK-based restaurant review site that’s also incorporated elements of the Groupon model-offering a deal to the group on select venues for a limited time.

Guía Oleo is also worth a mention here- it’s specific to Buenos Aires but uses a unique rewards card to encourage members to visit involved restaurants in addition to general restaurant and local reviews.

InnerDinner

Once you’ve selected the restaurant and made the reservation, it’s time to find someone to share your meal- whether at a restaurant you’ve wanted to try or even at home. That’s where InnerDinner comes in. Operating under the assumption that food is the great unifier, users build supper clubs or more date-like experiences based on personal profiles and eating habits.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 8:26 am and is filed under Friday Five, Home Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.