Where to eat? It is a basic question of life in New York, and one that app developers have attempted to answer in various ways. Apps fall into a few categories: those that try to show you all the information that is out there (Yelp or Urbanspoon), those that rely on the wisdom of selected experts (Immaculate Infatuation or Chefs Feed) or apps that pick a small corner of the food world and focus on that (Tweat.it for food trucks).
Here are a few more to consider adding to your phone.
Foodspotting is an app whose basic function is to let people share photographs of food, with the idea that once you see what you want to eat, you can go to the restaurant that serves it. Lots of people are adding photos, not all of them inspiring: I clicked the “nearby†tab while sitting in my apartment, and the closest image was a photograph that someone from the corner bar had taken of a Bud Light. An Italian restaurant seems to be adding images of its entire menu, and one of my Facebook friends is posting dozens of images from restaurants around town. When you upload an image, you have to indicate the restaurant the food came from, so other users can find their way to the dishes themselves.
If you want to find a restaurant recommendation another way, the app also allows you to follow specific users, or to browse guides where people have posted recommendations for , or people who love nachos. And a deals function is built in under the “specials†tab (free for iPhones and other Apple devices, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry).
If deals are really what you are after, check out BiteHunter, which aggregates offerings from various daily deals sites and places them on a map. It's a fine idea, and there are plenty of opportunities to eat for cheap. It is not without its glitches, though. On the two consecutive days I looked at the app, none of the deals from Restaurants.com, a large deals site, were working. (BiteHunter blamed Restaurant.com, but really, do I care whose fault it is?) Also, the world of daily deals has its annoyances, and BiteHunter does not help you avoid them. I settled on a Groupon and bought it through BiteHunter with no problem. But in exchange for the cheap meal, Groupon started sending me an alarming number of e-mails about other ways to spend my money (free for iPhones and other Apple devices with iOS 4.0 or later).
Of course, once you have found a restaurant and eaten your fill, the check will show up. A new app called Foodivide helps you end an otherwise pleasant evening without grumbling about how so-and-so never pays for all the wine he drinks. The app, which is strikingly well-designed, lets a user tally up what each person had, and will even divide items between people for the sharers in your group. Once the bill has been entered, decide how much of a tip you're leaving, and Foodivide tells everyone exactly what they owe (99 cents for iPhones and other Apple devices with iOS 5.0 or later).
Have a favorite New York City app? Send tips via e-mail to appcity@nytimes.com or via Twitter to @joshuabrustein.
