LTHForum.com

Eat at the restaurants, post about them, invite people to join you there and when Great Neighborhood Restaurant nomination time comes around, nominate one and nudge your friends to nominate others (you're limited to one each per year).

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What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang

See viewtopic.php?f=28&t=3717

Is there some way to "jump start" suburban listings?

My wife is a member of Angies List. They recently added medical providers to their services directory, and had a promotion in October to get people to write recommendations of places, particularly medical providers.

Could something like that be done here?

If I were restricted to nominate only one of my favorite restaurants out here in the suburbs every year, I'd be dead before they all got added to the list.

Check out the suburbs are not a culinary wasteland and add, add, add.

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Also, a restaurant doesn't have to be a GNR for you to post about it and for other people to try it.

The map is just a handy thing for places that just-so-happen to be LTH GNR's.

Five-six years ago, when I would talk about food in Highland Park. I got very little to no feedback. Now there are at least two dozen people who will report about food in my area. More than a few people have gone as far as touching the Illinois border to check out Captain Porky's, which received GNR status this year.

Two-three years ago, discussion of food in northwest Indiana was barely present on this board. It was so off the radar, there was a time a Hammond recommendation might end up on the Beyond Chicago board. Now there are regular reports from the area, which Rene G and I are pleased to help support. It is my goal that one or two NWI establishments obtain a GNR. However many more many never get a GNR, but are nonetheless worthy stops.

I will admit to planting a bug in the ear of the poster who nominated Ron's Cajun Connection. I think the chicken joints in Ladd, IL have a chance in the future.

I remember when Dickson posted about By-by's in East Chicago some years ago, he openly admitted nobody would go. I beelined for the place when Culinary Historians had a meeting there once. My friends had already committed to going to a tavern, I told them I could not pass up By-Bys. When I later told them what I had for lunch, they were kicking themselves for not abandoning their plans.

There is an infrequent poster who likes to quote Gandhi, which is very applicable here, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Yes, this is a do-it-yourself project, which you knew all along. I am a bit of a road warrior. Write up something unique and attractive then you may just find me wandering through sometime soon to check it out myself.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

The GNRs are not a listing service like Angie's List. They are awards that have been granted to restaurants that the community nominates (follow the link from Darren72 for more info).

Perhaps any confusion lies in the subject line of this thread -- to further what eatchicago said, the map in this "mapping LTH" thread at the moment relates primarily to mapping the GNRs. And it was an "unofficial" service initiated and provided by an LTH member. Having said that, there is nothing that stopping you, j r, or anyone else, from creating a google map based upon the Suburban "Wasteland" Index started by LAZ (linked by Mhays above), and then posting the map on this board. I actually think that would be quite useful.

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Local Beet

This is a good time to also remind everyone about a really cool feature in google: the ability to search within a web domain. This is especially useful in Google Maps.

Go to maps.google.com

In the search bar at the top of the screen, type "site:lthforum.com <stuff here>", where <stuff here> is whatever you'd like to search for. Be sure there is no spaces in "site:lthforum.com".

For example, if you type "site:lthforum.com barrington" you will get a list of restaurants (and some other places) that are near Barrington and have been discussed on LTH Forum. You'll see a link to the LTH Forum thread and the address of the restaurant.

Another example: type "site:lthforum.com polish" - this gives you a list of restaurants/businesses discussed on LTH Forum that have "polish" in the thread.

Finally, if you type "site:lthforum.com polish near Barrington" it will (you guessed it) find restaurants near Barrington, IL that have "polish" in the thread. You can even perform more specific searches, like "site:lthforum.com chinese near 400 N. Clark Street".

This works because a lot of us try to include restaurant/business names and addresses at the end of our posts. Note that searching like this isn't perfect - Google sometimes gets the context wrong, but it is surprising good and can be really useful. Next time you are going to be in a part of town unknown to you, this feature of Google Maps can be really helpful to quickly find relevant threads on LTH Forum.

Though I should point out that this useful feature (mapping a website) only works if people remember to post addresses (not links, not descriptions, but the street address) and Google does better when the address is in the typical format, e.g.:

Hidden Gem Restaurant
123 Out Of The Way Highway
Invisible, IL

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

This place sounds great! Do they have a phone number?

But how's the portion size?

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

Smartasses....
(yes, if you're being susie goodposter, you put the phone number in as well, so people can call if they need to)

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

All you have to do is post about good places in the area. Hopefully other LTHers will follow your footsteps and visit some of the places you recommend. If a place establishes enough of a positive track record by the time the next round of GNR nominations are open and someone nominates it for a GNR, it will end up on the map. To read all about the LTH Forum Great Neighborhood Restaurant Awards (GNRs), click here.

Remember, if no one posts abut restaurants in your area, no one here will ever know about them and/or be able to go.

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Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

MincyBits has been in the hospital lately, and I can't tell you how wonderful the google GNR map has been in helping me find quality food near the medical district. (I'll post pictures later, especially of the delight that they called "beef (cold)" on the hospital menu.)

In the past couple weeks, we've had Coalfire Pizza, Lao Sze Chuan, White Palace Grill, and Al's Beef. (no one has come with me to Nuevo Leon, yet)

But, as I posted in it's thread, I ran into a problem when I went to Old Fashioned Doughnuts on a Sunday. If we could add any known operating hours to the locations on the map, I think it would be fantastically beneficial.

I'm not suggesting germuska does all the work, if possible. Is it possible to add users that are able to edit a map, as to enlist outside help?

If not, I've been meaning to look into the Google Maps API for other reasons - maybe this will finally be the kick-in-the-pants that gets me to do it.

Thanks for posting the tip, this works marvelously on my G1 (Google) phone!

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"Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand." Leo Durocher

Pardon me if I've posted this question elsewhere before, but an ongoing frustration for me is that I have all my favorite LTH-mentioned and personal favorite locations in the Chicago area mapped in Microsoft Streets & Trips, for which there is (not surprisingly) no corresponding Blackberry app.

I gather that if, following germuska's example, I created a "My Maps" map for these locations, somehow I should be able to access it on the BB via Google Maps. My two questions are:

1) Can I export the Microsoft S&T pinpoint data and import it into a Google Map?
2) How exactly can I get to one of My [Google] Maps on the Blackberry? There is no "My Maps" option on the Google Maps app menu.

My guess on question 2 is that I have to get the data into a .kml file and find a place to store it on line (which means, back to figuring out how to create a personal website through my Comcast account and upload a kml file to it.)

Sorry if I'm repeating questions already asked or if I haven't quite understood the info already posted.

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"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

The GNR Google Map has been updated to reflect the Fall 2009 class of honorees.

To view the map on an iPhone, open the maps app and "search" for

http://lthforum.com/gnrmap.rss

Unfortunately, it doesn't show the details of the places, only their name and location on the map.

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Joe G.

"Whatever may be wrong with the world, at least it has some good things to eat." -- Cowboy Jack Clement

Joe, do you know if it's possible for me to save a copy of your GNR map and edit it as my own? I would like to be able to create a personalized Google Map that shows the GNRs plus my own points of interest.

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"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

You can save the map as RSS or KML (the "View in Google Earth" link). Then, if you are editing a map of your own, there is an "import" link which allows you to upload files in either of those formats. I haven't actually tried this myself, so there may be minor wrinkles.

Of course, Google Maps also allows you to "turn on" multiple custom maps at one time, so you may be able to achieve what you want without copying the map I made. But feel free to do it if it helps you out.

(More generally than in response to Katie, I offer the map to any to use as they see fit, but the copyright or other intellectual property rights to the list (as in 'which restaurants are on it') are not mine to give, so for any use other than personal, you're advised to consult someone other than me...)

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Joe G.

"Whatever may be wrong with the world, at least it has some good things to eat." -- Cowboy Jack Clement

This should work on any phone with Google Maps, not just the iPhone.

Just tried it on my Palm Centro.

I saved the GNR Map to My Maps in my Google acount. Now I can access it directly using the mapping and GPS stuff on my Droid. Very slick.

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Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

Wow, im super happy i found this link.

I actually just started to create a google map of the GNR list not realizing Joe already put in the hard work. I'm not much of a poster but thought a map like this would be well worth the effort, clearly a few other people thought so as well.

Thank you Joe. Awesome work.

The latest version of Google Maps for Android (4.0+) added support for adding My Maps as a layer, so now you can get the GNR map on your phone, including details, phone numbers, street view, etc. It's pretty awesome.



To get it on your phone (assuming you have google maps 4.0+, and it may require android 2.0+), all you have to do is:

Click on Joe's link to the google map above and then click "Save to My Maps". Make sure you login with the account your Android phone is associated with.

On your phone, open the maps application, click the menu button, choose "Layers" and then choose "More Layers". You can now select "My Maps" and then pick the LTH GNR map.

Everything will show up as an overlay, and then you can select one and get info, call them (if there's a phone number listed), get driving directions, view them on google street view, etc.

edit for joe: for some reason none of the GNRs from before the most recent round are showing phone numbers here. not sure why. all of the resources and the new gnrs are ok, but the older ones don't work.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

Gleam,

Thanks for the illustration. This feature has been available for quite some time. I posted about it back in December (look a couple posts up), and it's proven invaluable for me. I also mapped out places for my recent Palm Springs trip on My Maps and I never had to consult a piece of paper during my entire trip. This is a great feature for LTHers who take road trips. It's really very slick! Have I mentioned that I love my Droid?

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Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

Yeah, it just became available to me because my primary account on my droid is my "google apps" account, and the Maps application was only updated yesterday to allow you to switch to a gmail account.

If anyone else was limited by using a google apps account before, you'll be happy with the update.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

Not sure if there are others that need to be updated, but Naf Naf Grill recently moved so their location is incorrect in the LTH GNR map on google.

New address
1739 Freedom Drive 109
Naperville, IL 60563
(630) 904-7200 ‎