The iPhone pizza apps featured in this article are tried and tested methods of ordering your favourite pizza with minimum fuss. Of course some are designed to order all kinds of take-away, so if you’re craving Indian, Chinese, Mexican or something else entirely you’ll only be limited by your local selection. I can tell I’m going to be hungry by the time I’ve finished this.

Pizza Hut (US & AU)

Regardless of what you think of Pizza Hut food, there’s no arguing that they’ve got one of the best mobile apps, at least in the US anyway. Not only do they let you order food and locate restaurants but they also provide a bit of fun, allowing you to construct your meal from scratch as part of the process (or use the app in demo mode without ordering).

Don’t worry, there are quick ways of ordering too (favourites and previous orders) so if you’re in a hurry there’s no messing around.

Currently Pizza Hut have US and Australian apps, though the US edition is better kitted out at the moment. I’d also expect the UK and other parts of Europe to get a similar app before long. US residents can see the full line-up of apps (including Android, iPad and Windows Phone 7 versions) here.

Download: Pizza Hut US @ App Store
Download: Pizza Hut Australia @ App Store

GrubHub (US)

If you’re lucky to live in one of the 19 supported US cities then your pizza and other take-away needs will be satisfied with the official GrubHub app. Featuring more than 20,000 eateries from Los Angeles to Miami to New York, this app will serve up all kinds of food based on the local selections.

The app is loaded with features including GPS location detection, multiple address storage, the ability to quickly order past purchases with a few taps and the ability to save payment information for an even quicker checkout process. GrubHub also has an Android app which can be found here.

Download: GrubHub @ App Store

Snapfinger (US)

Snapfinger isn’t just another restaurant ordering and delivery app, but a listing for pretty much every restaurant local to you. What this means is that though you can’t order from all of the restaurants featured on the service, you do get fairly quick access to menus, phone numbers, prices and the full local selection when choosing where and what to eat.

Ideally this should help you make a more informed decision, even if you have to make a phone call to get what you want. That said, it’s easy to order from those restaurants that are compatible with the service, and of course you can search by cuisine in order to get your pizza fix. The app features more than 500,000 restaurant listings, local eatery discovery and handy features like repeat ordering and directions.

Download: Snapfinger @ AppStore

Menulog (AU & NZ)

I’m currently living in Melbourne, Victoria and have found this service incredibly useful over the past few months. Menulog makes it really easy to order a pizza from the finest local participating restaurants. By now I’ve found my favourite places and meals so ordering takes no time at all. Unfortunately the app is only available on the Australian app store, so my UK account is useless.

Never mind because it plugs into the same great service, providing the same selection depending on where you are. SMS confirmations are usually here within a minute or two, and new businesses are added each week. Now, if only the app were available internationally – for some reason the New Zealand edition is…

Download: Menulog (Home Delivery and Takeaway) @ App Store

HungryHouse (UK)

Unfortunately the UK’s selection of food ordering apps is a bit disappointing at the moment. There are great services like Just-Eat, which sets up many independent businesses with a way to make money online but no iPhone app. Step in HungryHouse, a mobile version of the popular website that features restaurants and deliveries from all over the country.

The service is still growing and at present operates best in large urban areas including London, the Midlands and the North West (Liverpool and Manchester). View more than 3,500 menus, filter by cuisine or simply use your iPhone’s GPS to find nearby restaurants. Even if the service isn’t up and running near you yet it might be worth keeping an eye on it.

Download: HungryHouse @ App Store

Domino’s (US, UK & AU)

Last but not least (or is it?) comes Domino’s, featuring 3 separate apps for 3 separate territories – the US, Britain and Australia. Domino’s Pizza is an entirely subjective experience, so if you like it you’re bound to enjoy being able to order it from your phone. The US version (pictured) appears to exhibit the best design, with the recently launched Aussie version looking considerably better than its British cousin.

Of course all of the apps allow you to order pizza, sides and whatever else you want from Domino’s. That’s the point here, though the UK version does seem to be poorly designed and inferior to the other two.

Download: Domino’s Pizza USA @ App Store
Download: Domino’s UK @ App Store
Download: Domino’s Australia @ App Store

Conclusion

If you thought ordering food in your web browser was easy then your iPhone will delight you. The ability to order anywhere you like, choose delivery times or simply plan ahead is great. Of course this could all have been accomplished with a simple phone call, but that’s no fun now is it?

Hopefully more and more services will launch mobile apps (especially in the UK, which already has some leading online ordering services – but few apps) in the near future to provide an even better selection than we’ve got now.

Do you know of any great iPhone pizza apps for ordering pizza? How about web services? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Tech-related recipes can be quite a challenge. I’m not going to say they’re easy. But won’t it be worth the effort when all your friends think you’re a genius for making awesome superhero cupcakes or Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters for your next party? Here are some ideas for geeky-inspired recipes, some easier, some harder, but all of them mouth watering!

Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

If you’re a fan, or if your friends are fans, or if you all just like trying new drinks, here is an interesting recipe for the intriguing drink from those legendary books – the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

The recipe includes the original text from the book – the original “recipe” for the Gargle Blaster a la Douglas Adams. There are probably many adaptations of the recipe to the real world, but this is one of the most detailed ones I’ve found.

If you’re a bit more ambitious about Adams, you can try this whale-crushed-petunia-pot cake. The recipe walks you through creating a true-to-form landscape for your whale, and of course the whale itself and this believable crushed petunia pot made of a chocolate cupcake.

Tetris Pixels

Why Tetris Pixels? Well, they’re just similar concepts. And if you like Tetris (or pixels, and who doesn’t like pixels!), be sure to try making these Tetris brownies.

You can serve these as individual brownies and then have all your friends try forming them into lines without smearing frosting everywhere. This could make for an exciting party!

Another option in the same department is making these pixel cookies. This is an image-rich instructable on making pixelized butter cookies. The cool thing about this recipe is that you can use it to make pretty much any shape you want inside the cookies. It’s the method that’s being explained here, and you can use it to let your imagination run wild.

Pancakes

If you love pancakes, you’re going to love Jim’s Pancakes. This guy makes pancakes in any form and size you can imagine, while sharing some of his tips and thoughts on each one. These are not exactly recipes, but if you know how to make a pancake batter, you can sure get some inspiration for these. For example, this is Jim’s iPhone 4S pancake.

You can also check out his Millennium Falcons and AT-AT Walkers. A bit hard to make, maybe, but truly awesome. And who knows, maybe you can find your secret pancake skills thank to these!

Superheroes and Other Heroes

I don’t know about you, but I adore superheroes of all kinds. Well, preferably of the Superman or Batman kind, but others will do too. If you share this same love, your next project can be making superhero gingerbread men.

This recipe doesn’t include trivialities such as how to make the actual gingerbread men, but you can look at the intricate decorations and try to make your own superhero designs. Even copying these same designs could be a great way to make your very own superheroes.

If this seems a bit much, you can try these simpler superhero cupcakes. Instead of featuring the whole superhero, these make do with their signs and symbols, and are therefore much easier to make.

The same blogger who made these also made some simple Star Trek cupcakes you could try, or if you’re really driven, this awesome Godzilla cake (which I would love to make myself).

Angry Birds

A post like this will not be complete without an Angry Birds section. Not because Angry Birds is so important, but there are some Angry Birds recipes out there which are simply too cute to miss. If you’re into cupcakes, try these awesome Angry Birds cupcakes recipe, which includes detailed instructions on making beaks out of slices orange candies and bellies out of sliced marshmallow.

Alternatively, you can try these Angry Birds cake pops, which are possibly harder to make, but are bound to impress your friends and are way more fun to hold and eat. This recipe is not as image-rich, so you’ll have to use your imagination some.

Odds And Ends

If all these specific things are not hitting the spot, and you’re looking for something a bit more general, how about trying these relatively simple computer cupcakes?

These might look complicated to make, but it’s actually simpler than it seems when looking at the actual recipe.

On an entirely different note, you can also decide to go out of your way and make iPhone cupcakes. There are lots of pictures of these around the web, but not a lot of actual recipes. This, too, is not a very detailed recipe, but contains more details than others, including an actual cupcake recipe and some tips on making the sugar decorations.

If you’re looking for more great things to make, check out:

• 10 Brilliant But Creepy Halloween Recipes To Spook Out Your Friends
• 5 DIY Angry Birds-Inspired Crafts For The Upcoming Holidays

Did you make any awesome recipe you’d like to share? Are you planning on making some of these for your next party? Share in the comments!

Image credit: Vanilla Moment

Out of 415 readers who voted, 48% think tablets will never entirely replace laptops, 32% think it might actually happen, but that today’s tablets are still missing some key components, 20% think it’s a sure thing, and is only a matter of time, and 1% think that the iPad will replace laptops, but other tablets won’t.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

As you can see, 3 voters thought that Apple’s iPad will manage to replace laptops, while other tablets won’t. Would be interesting to know the reasons behind these votes!

This week’s poll question is: Do You Use Social Recommendation Apps To Find A Good Place To Eat?

Social recommendation apps for restaurants are all the rage lately. Apps and websites such as Yelp and Urbanspoon are highly popular, and many people use them as a gauge when deciding where to have dinner. These apps can be a great source of information when you’re looking for a good place to eat in a new town, and can also be used to find new places in your own local city. This method is not foolproof, however, and you can find yourself in a place you would not otherwise go to, just because you trusted a stranger’s recommendation. Some people still prefer asking their own friends for help, and thus reduce the chance of falling on a dud. So what is your view on the matter?

Have you had good or bad experience with these social recommendation apps? Or maybe you never even tried them? And if so, why? Share everything in the comments.

Today’s Picks

As you launch the add-on, you are greeted with a gigantic macro shot of something edible (and hopefully appetizing). For example, here’s a Banana-maple tower:

This looks tiny because it is a screenshot of my full screen, resized to fit the blog. But you can see how much space the image takes up. But it’s not just an image:

You can read basic facts about the dish, and then click through to the recipe (we’ll look at the recipe display in a moment).  In case you don’t like the first dish, you can easily scroll between four other options. Since it’s an add-on, the large images all load instantly, and the whole thing feels very responsive and instant.

What’s Available

Let’s focus on the header for a moment:

Here you can clearly see the scroller used to flip between “Today’s picks“. Other entries include recipes (the bulk of the app, really), videos, and ingredients. There’s one more option to the right of favorites, which is subscribing to the BBC GoodFood newsletter. Let’s take a quick look through each of these categories.

Recipes

The initial recipe display shows each recipe as a “card” with an image and some quick facts. One thing I like about the app is that it’s very straightforward and honest about the amount of recipes available. While websites like Allrecipes.com boast an endless supply of crowd-sourced recipes, BBC GoodFood is almost like a small cookbook in your browser, with a limited and curated collection of recipes.

The top bar lets you instantly filter recipes by type, as well as by “Less than 200 calories“, “healthy classics“, etc. You can also do a custom search, if you’re after something very specific:

But realize you may not find what you’re after, due to the relatively small number of recipes the app currently offers. For example, when I searched for a chicken-based Moroccan dish that would serve six, the app found nothing. It did find a recipe when I was searching for four servings, though, so I know there is a Moroccan chicken recipe.

I wish the app could just scale ingredient lists up and down automatically by the number of servings I’d like to make – this is something Allrecipes does today, and doesn’t seem like a very difficult feat to accomplish.

Individual Recipe Display

Once you found a recipe you like, it is time to learn how to make it. The individual recipe display screen is simple and informative, with a single image of the recipe (which you can enlarge), an ingredient list, and a list of instructions. One niggle is that the typography is a bit on the tiny side, so if you want to use it as a reference while cooking, you may want to zoom in (Chrome’s zoom feature works within the add-on, so you can just hit Ctrl and +).

Cookery Videos

The video section currently has just a handful of videos about basic cooking techniques. This is one part of the app that actually didn’t work for me. The video did buffer, but I could not get it to play. Definitely underdeveloped, but it shows potential.

Healthy Ingredients

The Healthy Ingredients section lists ten different ingredients, each with nutritional information and buying, preparation and storage tips. It’s a short list, but each ingredient has a hi-resolution image and thoughtful information.

Final Thoughts

BBC GoodFood looks like a promising add-on. What I like best about it is that it feels very curated – it feels as though the recipes and all content were carefully edited. The downside is that there is not a lot of content, but if you are looking for oodles of content, there are plenty of recipe websites out there.

With that being said, I have four of the most unique and interesting food websites and blogs that you’re ever going to stumble across.

Epic Meal Time

If you’re a YouTube fanatic like I am, you knew this was coming! YouTube was (and still is) the very cornerstone of this rambunctious groups’ success. Their YouTube channel catapulted them to the front of the food world, where they make the craziest and most ridiculous dishes like their Meat Chtulhu, Fast Food Pizza Cake, Cheesy Grilled Cheese Tower, and so many more. These guys have created a business out of making food crazy. They were even on Jay Leno’s show recently.

They’ve managed to coin their own catchphrases, have their own shop, and have managed to gather somewhat of a cult following. Every week they put out at least one brand new video that we should all keep up on. You might even see a celebrity appearance here or there. These guys are big time!

This Is Why You’re Huge

TIWYH is a food blog inspired by the late, great This Is Why You’re Fat (which to my knowledge has ceased content development and is exploring TV deals). TIWYH is an extreme, visual food blog that will have you in a mix between drooling and holding your stomach in pain.

The blog is updated on a daily basis and currently features such monstrosities as the Southwestern Burger, The Real Manwich, and Mama’s Hill of Spaghetti. This website features a lot of bellybusters, no joke. Any fans of Man vs. Food? You’ll love this website.

Foodbeast

Now this website is different. Foodbeast is like the TMZ of food culture. If you need interesting, shocking, and informative news and information about your favorite retailers, fast food restaurants, or food shows on television then you’ve come to the correct spot. This website offers a completely new look to online food culture.

The website categorizes content so that it’s easier for you to find interesting material on recipes, fast food, food trucks, and more. More than that though, this website just has some interesting and unique content. How about an article on a limited Domino’s Pizza Watch? Did you know Kraft is launching 70 new products in 2012?

The Worst Thing I Ever Ate

Opposite the popular Food Network show, TWTIEA is a refreshingly humorous blog that shows you, well, things you’ll never want to put in your mouth.

While it’s obviously an opinion blog and reviews come in from anyone and everyone, this website is both hilarious and pretty informative. Plus, you have a chance at finding some foreign snacks and foods that you never knew existed. Like this. This blog makes for hours of casual browsing and you might even save yourself from a gross meal or two.

If you’re looking for a few food blogs on the more tame side, check out these five that are sure to send your eyes going insane. If you guys have any suggestions (that weren’t mentioned here or in the aforementioned article), let me hear about them in the comments!

Though Evernote is just a file cabinet for collecting all sorts of stuff, its attractive design and simple user interface make it stand out above the rest.

And it is also its design appeal that makes Evernote’s two recently released iPhone and iPod touch apps, Hello and Food, worthy of a download.

Evernote Hello

On a few occasions I’ve taken out my iPhone and recorded the contact information of people I’ve met. It’s no big deal, for it’s part of what you do with a smartphone. I’ve also handed my phone to others and asked them to type in their contact information for me. Again, no big deal, but that’s exactly what Evernote Hello app does. It’s a simple way to collect someone’s contact information, except the user interface looks more like a greeting card than the techie text fields of an address book.

Let’s say you’re at network business meeting, event, or party and you meet someone who you want to keep in touch with it. You launch Hello on your iPhone, tap the + button, and then hand that person your phone. Your recipient enters his or her contact information and then snaps a photo of him or herself using the iOS self-facing camera.

The user interface for Hello consists of your photo and a personal small greeting that I would imagine — for I haven’t tried it on anyone yet — would make the recipient feel more comfortable about entering information into your phone.

If the recipient includes an email address, your contact information along with your snapped photo gets automatically emailed to your recipient. This email feature alleviates the problem of your contact not having an iPhone with the app installed on it to exchange information. (Remember the old Bump app that required you to “bump” another person’s iPhone to exchange information? Yeah, right…how many people did you ever get around to bumping with?)

Now of course if you meet someone who would give you a dazed look when handing them your iPhone, you could simply enter the information yourself and snap their photo, making sure you switch the lens direction of the camera.

Personally I can’t wait to use this app, for I can’t count how many times I’ve lost someone’s business card or didn’t have pen and paper to write down their contact information. I use my iPhone as my wallet now, so an app like this is perfect for storing contact information. The contact information you receive is also synced to your Evernote account for instant backup, but unfortunately it doesn’t get copied to your Address Book.

Of course with the first version of an app like this, there are many things you wish it could or would not do. First off, the camera snaps four photos, all of which are retained in the app. (Thankfully they are not copied to your device’s Camera Roll.) However, the camera starts snapping photos when the person raises the iPhone to his face. This may feel a little awkward for some users, which will probably mean retaking the photo several times to get it “right.”

It would be better if the recipient could just select one photo from the four that are snapped, though that would take away from the mini slideshow effect for each of your contacts on the homepage.

It’s also great that your contact information is sent to the recipient, but it would be even better if you could somehow select from a few previously setup profiles, say one for business and one for social contacts.

And many users will wonder why they can’t add their Facebook info, like they can their Twitter address.

Evernote Food

Evernote Food is another simple information gathering app that is quite frankly similar to how you probably already use Evernote or another note application that can also capture images.

Evernote Food has a clean easy-to-use interface, in which you simply launch the app, tap the + button, and snap a photo of a memorable meal that you have eaten at home or at a restaurant.

I have already started such an image collection in the aNote app I use on my iPhone. But honestly, I will now start using Food because the layout is more attractive.

Food will also record, using GPS integration, the location in which you take a photo, as well as allowing you to tag your images and write your own captions and additional notes.

You can share your captured content via e-mail, Twitter or your Facebook account.

The photos you take in Food are also copied to your Camera Roll, and the content can be saved to a notebook in your Evernote account.

Food might be very useful for recording recipes, restaurant meals and menus, wines and special types of coffee that you want to remember. But this Evernote app doesn’t have a folder structure, nor can you search content by tags, which are used in your Evernote account and related apps.

Let us know what you think about Evernote Hello and Food. As free apps, requiring iOS 5.0 or later, they are so well designed that you will want to check them out for their sheer simplicity.

UrbanSpoon, which is one of the largest restaurant recommendation applications on the iPhone, has just received an awesome update that adds a check in feature called “Dineline.” This feature is designed to help users keep track of their dining habits and remember meals they have enjoyed. The update will be rolling out on the app store any minute now, and may well be out by the time you read this.

With the update there will now be a check in button allowing users to enter the where and when of your latest meal. You can also add a photo, price, notes and whether or not you liked it. This information will be saved in the “dineline” section of the app for future reference.

Once you have used the feature for a while, the application will give you charts and graphs that detail your favorite foods and places to eat. It’s a very useful tool for keeping track of your eating habits.

Unlike Foursquare and other check in applications, this doesn’t have to be done the moment you are at the restaurant. You can add it whenever you want because it isn’t a game where you are competing against friends. These check ins are for your own knowledge. You can, however, share your check ins with Twitter if you should so choose.

Source: TechCrunch

I have been hearing more and more people talk about living the vegan lifestyle. As someone who closely follows the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, I was surprised how many fighters choose to live vegan. At first, I was unsure about what made the vegan lifestyle different from a vegetarian, but I looked into it, and it is quite a difference.

I have come to realize that being a true vegan consists of not using any animal products, and it is much more than not eating certain things. I can tell you right now that I am not a vegan, but I am always fascinated with learning more about other lifestyles and what they consist of.

If you are interested in finding out more about the vegan way of life, and are perhaps interested in adopting it yourself, than I have some iPhone apps that will help you out a great deal. These apps offer everything from basic information on what it is like to be a vegan, recipes and ways to get more active in the vegan community and make a difference.

Be Vegan

This application is a good starting point for someone looking to get into the vegan lifestyle. It offers some basic recipes, though not as many as some of the other apps we will talk about later. Where this app shines is in their news and stories about things that are happening in the vegan world. They cover all the latest news and dig into the science behind being a vegan.

VegScan

This app allows users to scan barcodes for items while shopping and find out if the item is vegan and vegetarian. It is a user maintained app, so some items will not be there. You can add them if you know whether the item is or is not vegan. You earn points for adding items, so it makes it something of a game. The scanning worked well when I tested it, and even if the item wasn’t listed, it always detected the bar code.

Whole Foods Recipes

This is an application from the Whole Foods Stores. This application is not dedicated to Vegans, but it does have a tremendous database of Vegan recipes. By simply clicking on “Special Diets”, you can show only vegan recipes. They also have special picks for all kinds of other lifestyles if vegan is not your thing. If you shop at Whole Foods this is a must have app because you can quickly add all the items in a recipe to your shopping list, and have it readily available the next time you go to the store.

VeganYumYum Mobile

YumYum is one of the more popular online recipe boards, so it only makes sense that they would have a vegan version. This app is simple and straightforward. It is a list of all the vegan recipes on their website. There are well over 50 recipes on there. Each recipe has pictures, a list of ingredients and systematic instructions for preparation. They also have the ability to add a recipe to your favorites, so if you find something you love and want to make again, it will be just a couple of taps away.

PETA

The official PETA app has everything you need to know about helping animals. If choosing not to eat any animal products is not enough, and you want to take it to the next level than the PETA app has just what you need. It offers all the latest issues that need to be addressed. You can take action on any of the alerts and earn points and rankings. If you are looking to step up your involvement, check out this application. Even if you are not a vegan and you just want to help animals this is a great app to help you get involved.

Conclusion

With these applications, you will be ready to make the lifestyle change, if you should choose to do so. Obviously, being a vegan is not for everyone, including myself. If you think it might be for you, check out these applications and see if they help move you in the right direction.

What do you think of these free iPhone apps and if you tried them, did they help you. Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Whether you’re looking to expand your beer knowledge, get some entertainment tips for your holiday dinner, learn about food, drink and music pairings, or even design your very own beer label, you’re going to find something to your taste in these awesome 6 websites for alcohol lovers.

Tastings.com

Tastings is a huge drink index which contains lots of wines, beers and spirits, along with helpful articles about all three. The website’s interface could use a facelift, but information-wise, it’s complete heaven for anyone who’s interested in alcoholic drinks.

Browsing the various articles can keep you busy for a while, but don’t miss out on the searchable index. When searching, you can narrow your search by score, price, country and more, and choose from a wide selection of categories.

The search yields a list of beverages that match your criteria, sorted by score, with gives you a short description for each drink, along with the producer’s or importer’s contact information.

Beer Advocate

If beer is your passion and wine is not really your thing, give Beer Advocate a try. Beer Advocate is a worldwide index of beers, pubs, beer stores and everything else to do with beer. All beers and beer places are reviewed by both users and the site owners, which are known as “The Bros”.

The site is very informative too. If you have always wanted to know the real difference between American Stout, English Bitter and German Pilsner, head over to the “Beer Styles” page to learn all about it. From there you can browse all relevant beers, complete with scores and full reviews by drinkers.

Each beer gets a users score (BA score) and an official score from The Bros. You can decide for yourself who you trust more. Beer Advocate even publishes a monthly magazine which you can subscribe to or buy from their website.

All in all, this is an awesome website to discover interesting beers from all around the world, and decide exactly which beer you’re going to get next time you’re abroad.

Drinkify

Drinkify is a whole other take on alcohol loving. This website will not teach you anything about wine harvests or food matching. What it will give you are perfect drink-music pairings.

Well, maybe not perfect all the time, but it can sure give you some inspiration for your next party. Simply enter the artist you’re listening to, and get a cocktail or a drink that goes along well with it. The site uses The Echo Nest and Last.fm as sources, so it should recognize any somewhat known artist you try. Give it a shot!

That’s The Spirit

Continuing on the same line as Drinkify, That’s the Spirit focuses on the entertaining side of drinking.  Be it wine, beer or cocktails, this website will teach you all you need to know about entertaining with alcohol. From party planning tips and how-to guides (ever thought of setting up your own home bar?) to complete guides on how to entertain with beer and wine, you’ll find all of that here.

On top of that, the website includes a large cocktail recipe database, which is searchable by every kind of ingredient you can dream up.

If this is too complicated for you, try the most popular cocktails list for some inspiration.

Labeley

Have you ever dreamed of brewing your own beer? Do you think your favorite beer could use a new label? Well, these are not things Labeley can really provide, but what it can do is let you design your very own beer label, for free!

Start by choosing your main label shape, and continue by choosing from the wide array of available colors, graphics, banners and ribbons. To finish it off, add your text, shape it the way you want, and you have your label.

You can now download your label, share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+, etc., and even place it on your website using the provided code snippet. This is the place to let your beer creativity run wild!

Bol Cocktails

At its core, Bol Cocktails is really a commercial site, but it made this list for one feature which I failed to find anywhere else. Some people know exactly what they like in their cocktails. Others, like me, find it easier to think in terms of taste and strength. Bol Cocktails lets you search its cocktail index using those exact terms.

Simply find the right square for you on the taste-strength grid (e.g., weak and very sour), and immediately get loads of suggestion for cocktails that match those criteria. You can, of course, also search the database by ingredients, glasses, and even preparation methods.

The website is also a great source of information for bartenders and wannabes alike, and while its slightly confusing to navigate through, there’s some great information to be had.

Conclusion

Are you drunk yet? Did you find your inspiration for your next holiday party? If not, you can always check out Steve’s Top 10 Free Beer Related Applications For Your iPhone for some on-the-go inspiration.

Do you know of some more excellent websites for drink lovers? Did you find the perfect drink in one of these websites? Share in the comments!

Image credit: Shutterstock

Even apps like Foursquare and Instagram, which weren’t necessarily intended for sharing just food items, have been getting used that way for quite some time. In Instagram’s case, I would argue that foodtography played a major role in why the app became so popular amongst iPhone users.

So what’s next for foodies? In this article, I’m going to show you some more apps which should help you locate places and meals you’ll like, as well as document those meals you’ve eaten and enjoyed.

1. Ness

The first iPhone app I’d like to share with you is called Ness. Ness is a visually appealing food search engine that enables you to discover places you’ll love based on the types of foods that you like to eat. Just tell Ness what you like – and what you don’t – and it will get smarter over time, recommending to you new places to try.

Ness is also social. The app shows you the places your Facebook and Foursquare friends have rated, reviewed, or checked into, and allows you to share the things you like with them. Ness’ Likeness Engine incorporates your ratings/reviews and recommendations from friends to suggest new places that meet your tastes.

When you start using the app, Ness asks that you rate 10 restaurants that you’ve visited in the past. It will use this information to learn about your tastes when you rate your dining experiences and follow friends whose opinions influence your decisions. Results are tailor-made just for you.

2. Alfred

If you’re into recommendations, Alfred is another great app for you foodies out there. Alfred is your personal food butler/robot who recommends places based on your favorites. When you select a few of your favorite places for lunch, dinner, nightlife, coffee, brunch, etc. you will begin to receive custom results in the form of restaurants you will enjoy.

Connect Alfred with your Facebook account and you will be able to select the friends that you are out with. Alfred will then “tune” his recommendations to match everyone’s taste. The app is pretty intuitive and you do interact with Alfred as if he’s a real person. He asks you questions and even lets you ask your friends where they think you should grab a bite to eat.

3. Foodily

If you’re not interested in going out to eat, you should check out the Foodily app for iPhone. Foodily (directory listing) gives you daily recipe inspirations from your friends, food experts, and people you follow. It even lets you utilize your phone’s camera to pair your own food pictures with recipes from across the web.

Foodily has a recipe news feed that updates every time you open the app, giving you new recipe ideas, photos of what your friends have made, and search options to help you discover meals to make.

If you are eating out, you can take a picture at a restaurant, type a few ingredients into Foodily’s search bar, and get a similar recipe for you to cook at home. The photo functionality is also great for pairing a dish you’ve personally made with the recipe you found on a food blog, from a magazine, or wherever.

4. The Eatery

The Eatery is another great food-related application that takes advantage of your phone’s camera. With this app, you can snap photos of your food and The Eatery will give you a second opinion on the healthiness of your meal. The idea behind the app is that documenting the meals you eat is the first step to building awareness around healthy eating.

The Eatery will help you discover how well you eat from week to week, where you eat your best and worst meals, and what factors into potentially bad habits. Personally I think it’s pretty cool how information is presented to you upon simply snapping pictures of your food (which you probably do anyway).

As a bonus, I also recommend you check out Forkly, which I covered a couple of months back. When you’re done experimenting with these foodie apps, come back and tell us what you think!