You know the scenario: You feel like ordering in, but your options are limited because you’re not sure which places offer take-out, and even if you did, you don’t have the menu and wouldn’t know what to order. This is where ordertogomenus.com comes in.
Jason Denison, a self-taught Webmaster, got tired of the standard to-go pizza and Asian fare and created ordertogomenus.com, which features menus from Memphis-area restaurants that offer take-out. So far, the site includes menus from more than 80 restaurants, grouped by cuisine, including American (Huey’s, Half Shell, O’Charley’s), Mexican (El Mezcal, On the Border, Abuelo’s), and Italian (Macaroni Grill, Memphis Pizza Café).
“I do most of my work from home, and I work a lot, which means I have little time and order out quite a bit,” Denison explains. He started with about 75 menus from restaurants around town. That was the easy part. He then had to type up every single menu to fit into the site’s format. Although some restaurants have caught on to the free service Denison provides, he still gathers a lot of the menus himself as he slowly expands the site.
“I spend many, many hours on this, but I felt that Memphis needed a service like this,” Denison says. “I would like to see it spread to other cities so that locals as well as people from out of town could use it.”
Although Denison is currently not making any profit from the site, he feels strongly about continuing to offer it as a free service to both restaurateurs and customers.
“I don’t plan to ever charge for the service, but I do hope that it’ll eventually grow and possibly attract more advertisers,” Denison says.
For his second season of Feasting on Asphalt, Food Network personality, cinematographer, and chef Alton Brown took a motorcycle trip along the Mississippi River from Venice, Louisiana, to Lake Itasca State Park, Minnesota. After riding along the Tamale Trail, Brown and his crew stopped in Memphis to sample the local fare.
Feasting on Asphalt explores the history of road food and follows Brown and crew as they sample food at various stops, talk to local foodies, and often sleep under the stars.
For this season’s third episode, “Soul Food Survivor,” the team visited the Pink Palace Museum and Mansion, Jim Neely’s Interstate BBQ, Wiles-Smith Drugs, and Melanie’s Soul Food. The show also includes Doe’s Eat Place and Joe’s White Front Café, both in Greenville, Mississippi.
The show will air on the Food Network on Saturday, August 18th, at 8 p.m.
Davis-Kidd Booksellers is now selling whole-bean coffee from local coffee roaster Julie Ray of Café Francisco. The two available varieties, Mixed Breed/Regular Bite and CattichinoMix/Decattinated Coffee, cost $10 for the three-quarter-pound bag. Fifty percent of the proceeds from coffee sales will benefit the Animal Protection Association’s low-cost spay and neuter clinic. The coffee can be found in the bookstore’s Memphis section, which is located near the magazine racks. For more information, call 683-9801.
Davis-Kidd Booksellers, 387 Perkins Ext.
River Oaks Restaurant might soon be the favorite spot for Memphis’ cheese lovers. The restaurant now offers cheese tastings every Tuesday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The restaurant currently carries 48 different cheeses. Although the cheese menu is offered daily and priced at $12 (four cheeses), $17 (six cheeses), and $24 (nine cheeses), the Tuesday-night event is a bargain at $12 per person.
River Oaks Restaurant, 5871 Poplar (683-9305)
