Cart Compass PDX/BarBird

A couple new resources for fat computer nerds web-savvy, food-minded consumers:

Verizon customers, there’s another reason to be excited about your new iPhone (I’m just insecurely playing into the meme…I’ve never had a problem with my AT&T service in Portland). There’s a new foodcart-finder app to compete with the Bing/Portland Monthly collaboration. Right now, the Cart Compass PDX database is about 200 carts strong, but we’re assured it’s growing. The interface is simple and intuitive. You can search through a list of addresses and pods, or on a map. The app also features reviews, and highlights specials. Best of all, it’s free.

On the brick-and-mortar side, two local boys—Daniel Starling and Pierce Lamb—have started a national twitter-based service that aggregates restaurant/bar happenings in 44 cities (including, of course, our own). It’s available as a web platform here, and also as an iPhone app. You can search for tweets about happy hour, food/drink specials, live music, ladies nights (!), and cover charges. I can’t tell how useful this is going to be in the long run (right now I’m seeing a lot of information from Couture Ultra Lounge), but given enough information coming in, I imagine that BarBird has the potential to be helpful when you can’t decide where to go on a given night.