Dishola

How many times have you and your friends had a cool idea and only half implemented it until it fizzled out? How many times have you said to yourself, "Man, I should have stuck with that idea, it would have been really cool if it was done." Well my friend and ex-coworker, Lindsey Simon, did stick it out... and make a really cool website called Dishola.

It really is a cool website. The premise is simple: instead of reviewing entire restaurants, you review only dishes. So if you're in the mood for Pad Thai, you simply search for that and you'll find the highest reviewed Pad Thai dishes in your area.

Reviews by the dish? Bleh, you say... what makes this site special, if at all? It's all in the details. It's 100% integrated with Google Maps. When you search, you'll get a nifty Google Maps interface showing you where the hot dishes are... but even cooler than that is when you are reviewing a dish, it uses a Google API to ensure that you're not making a duplicate of a certain dish (in other words, we want two reviews of a single dish Pad Thai at Madam Mam's, not two reviews of two separate dishes both called Pad Thai at Madam Mam's).

The entire website is like that... very "Web 2.0" as some would say, but without all the super-flashy interface stuff that just gets in the way. It is very community oriented in nature. You have an identity and can find people with similar tastes and share opinions and what not (that's the real Web 2.0, ya know).

The whole operation is top notch. He didn't just make a website and shove it out on the internet to fester. Dishola is constantly keeping things fresh with celebrity dish reviews, video interviews from the nation's top chefs, charity and donation programs.

In short, he's taken an existing, somewhat stale idea and successfully breathed new life into it. Go check it out, I promise it's not like all those other tired food review sites.

Ok.. enough about how awesome the website is... this is my blog and should be about me! So here's my take on the whole thing. I'm massively jealous. He's living every programmer's dream!!! To crank out a cool product that people love using and spawning an active community around it! I want that! I mean seriously, the next best thing would be to create the world's most popular MMORPG single handedly or something.

Also, I have to get something off my chest... I'm a bad friend... I don't use Dishola as often as I should. I've put some thought into why this is and I've determined that it's the same reason why Adam and I needed a bet so our blogs would actually have some content. I hate putting up half assed reviews. See, Adam and I hardly ever posted blog articles because we would constantly revise them and never be happy. We needed a bet just to force ourselves to publish the articles, even if they aren't perfectly witty or deliciously insightful.

I was at Catfish Parlor the other day and I said to Aimee, "Remind me to get a picture of our lightly battered, deliciously fried catfish dinner with jalapeno tartar sauce so I can put it on Dishola." Low and behold, the check came and Aimee "reminded" me... :P

Also, I'm just not that good with words. "Get the Tom Kha soup at Madam Mams, it's really f-ing good." Sigh.