Seattle Eats

I've posted some infrequent audio tips to what may eventually become known as the MediaBlab podcast over at Liberated Syndication. It's primarily a testing ground for the various tools promoted to podcasters. In most cases, I find myself better able to convey the information in text, rather than trying to break things down in a descriptive monologue. For my own method of communication, there are some things I don't find speech to be particularly helpful in communicating.

Of course, there are some things I like to talk about that might take on new life in an audio form. Back when I lived in Iowa I published an email newsletter / blog dedicated to stuff going on in Des Moines. I stopped doing it in 2002 because I didn't have time and realized that I only enjoyed doing the commentaries on restaurants and reviewing local theater. Compiling the events listing every week was a huge pain because it was very difficult to track down the stuff I was interested in.

Now that I'm living in Seattle, there's a whole new world of restaurants to visit (or at least they are new to me). Instead of blogging about every restaurant I go to, I'm thinking seriously about doing a podcast dedicated to Seattle dining. I love to dining out. I love trying new restaurants. I'm always on the lookout for coffee alternatives to Starbucks which led me to some of the best coffee I've ever experienced (Zoka and Herkimer) and some of the worst (I won't bother to point fingers). Once a week is often enough that I can try something new without ever running out of restaurants. I realize this will only appeal to a small audience (if it appeals to anyone), but it's a creative change of pace from writing and talking about technology while still finding a practical application for the stuff I'm constantly prattling about in this space.

So far I haven't found any other podcasts with people covering restaurants in their area. I know when I travel to conferences the one thing I want (besides WiFi) is reliable recommendations for food. The concierge desk is generally encouraged to recommend certain places whether they are good or not, so you can't always count on the hotel. The various online rating sites tend to be skewed with ratings of 10 or 1, so it's hard to distill the quality of a restaurant from dining sites. I'm not saying my recommendations will be more accurate for everyone, but there's something you can tell about a restaurant from the intonations in a person's voice that you don't get from reading about it or seeing which box they checked on a scale. So here's my 10 cent idea for everyone who loves to eat out and tell their friends - start recording your recommendations and share them with the world. If you're interested, I'll even host the files so you don't have to find a bandwidth provider.