website in the Inc. article, but now appears to be linked to

CuisineNet.

The two share editorial content and have identical home pages.

DineSite’s

specialty is covering the dining scene in small communities, and it

does list more Princeton-area restaurants than does CuisineNet, but

not many more. It has about 12 listings. It is hard to figure out

how the selections were made. Sunny Garden is listed along with

George’s

Ribs and Roasters, Small World Coffee, and Karen’s Korner. Again,

there are few visitor reviews, and precious little information of

any kind.

The only choice within the Garden State is the Shore with Atlantic

City.

start-ups have tried — and failed to get very far off the ground.

The site links users to eateries offering take-out and delivery. The

idea is click, and then sit back and wait to open the door to dinner

or a late-night snack. Off to a slow start in the Princeton area,

Food.com lists only a few take-out spots, and most of them have either

closed or dropped out of the Food.com network.

lists exhaustive menus, including each meal, take-out options, and

— most helpful of all for office party planners — complete

catering menus. Type in "Princeton" and 109 restaurants come

up, but some are only "Princeton" by a very long stretch,

one that reaches all the way into the hills at the northwest part

of the state. Still, this site has dining options few others list.

Tiger Noodles on Nassau Street opposite Wild Oats is here, as is

Olive’s

deli on Witherspoon — home of amazing chicken salad and an

excellent

apple cake.

Menus.com, however, could use that mileage feature on Citysearch.

The first listing to come up under "Princeton" is Allileo’s

Kitchen in Denville, a town that only a native of Montana or some

similarly wide-open state could consider anywhere near Princeton.

The next listing, Chez Alice on Nassau Street, hits the target. Not

only is the gourmet take-out shop right in the heart of the area,

but its listing is wonderfully complete. Its offerings are divided

into categories, even going so far as to break out for fowl (seven

choices, including Ostrich loin at $19.90 a pound) and poultry (16

choices, each with prices and a complete description).

Included with the menus is a map, phone number, hours of operation

— and that ubiquitous "add a review" feature.

as "the world’s largest dining guide." It lists 150,000

restaurants

in over 8,000 cities. But only 24 of them are within five miles of

downtown Princeton, and that includes two Burger Kings, two Dominos

pizzas, two McDonalds (including the mini-Mickey D’s in the Wal-Mart

store at Nassau Park), one Papa John’s, two Pizza Huts, one Subway

sandwich shop, and one Wendy’s.

The site allows users to make reservations online — at least in

theory. There is a charge of $4.95 per reservation, unless users sign

up for an account at $7.95 per month or $22.95 per quarter, each of

which entitles subscribers to unlimited reservations. Restaurants

on the site — in addition to all those fast food joints —

include the Triumph Brewery, the Red Lobster on Route 1 South,

TGIFriday

at the MarketPlace mall, Tre Piani, and Acacia.

The hostess who answered the phone at TGIFriday said she has never

heard of the site, and added, "we don’t take reservations."

At Tre Piani, chef and partner Jim Weaver said "I didn’t know

we were on the site." None of the people available to answer the

phone at Acacia had ever heard of the site, either. This site might

very well be invaluable to diners in big cities trying to score a

table at a hot restaurant, and could be a good bet for a night out

in New York or Philadelphia or for business travelers, but it is of

little use locally.

user-ratings that made its paper-bound restaurants so popular, is

beautifully organized and fun to browse. Searches can be done by a

number of criteria, including business dining, cuisine, or

neighborhood.

Lists guide users to the "Most Popular" restaurants and those

with "Top Food." Alas, Zagat’s raters are either unfamiliar

with Princeton-area restaurants, or aren’t crazy about many of them.

Among the very few restaurants in this area that made the

"Top"

lists are Acacia in Lawrenceville, SoHo on George in New Brunswick,

and Rats in Hamilton.

Zagat.com lists 98 choices under business dining in New Jersey, but

doesn’t allow visitors to narrow the search more than that, either

by town name or distance, as many other sites do.

full, professionally-written reviews for restaurants in the immediate

area and as far afield as Highland Park, New Hope, Newtown, and

Freehold.

Searches are by cuisine, and not by town. New reviews are highlighted,

and each review contains basic dining information.

Newspaper,

website dining guide lists restaurants from New Brunswick through

Trenton, west to Skillman, and across the Delaware into Yardley.

Searches

are by town, cuisine, or special feature, including historic, outdoor

dining, fireplace, brunch, entertainment — or any combination

of these criteria. In some cases, listings link to full length,

professionally-written

reviews. All listings contain staff-written descriptions of the dining

experience, including decor, ambiance, and type of cuisine.

As with many dining websites the princetoninfo.com site gives diners

the chance to add their own comments (or vent their anger over an

egregious dining experience). Each listing links to the posted

comments.

And the diners are not shy about expressing themselves.

A dream dining guide might include U.S. 1’s search feature, the

Packet’s

extensive reviews, Citysearch’s mileage calculator and maps, Zagat’s

user ratings, and menu.com’s unabridged menus. Until some ambitious

entrepreneur combines these features, surfing around among the

websites

is a good way to find new places to entertain clients, celebrate

Fridays,

or explore some of the 3,172 restaurants (more than in the entire

state of Montana?) within an easy drive of Princeton area offices.

Top Of Page
Corporate Angels

<B>A-1 Limousine has raised $5,410 for the Susan

G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The money was raised through a

softball game with radio station WPST held in July at Armstrong Park’s

baseball field in Ewing.

Nearly half of the money was raised by A-1 employees who obtained

pledges from their family and friends. Key contributors were Tammy

Azzolini and Susan Vorwick, who raised more than $950, and John

Massari,

who donated $240. The Starr family, owners of A-1, doubled the money

pledged.

Service,

has given a $25,000 grant to HomeFront, the Lawrence-based nonprofit

that helps families, many of them homeless, get back on their feet.

The money will be used to construct a state-of-the-art food panty.

"This grant will allow us to construct a much-needed food pantry,

large enough to allow families to choose food from shelves, not just

receive pre-packed bags," said Celia Bernstein, HomeFront’s

operations

manager.

Top Of Page
Donate Please

homeless

child for back-to-school. In July volunteers from that organization

fanned out, writing down sizes for 668 children who are homeless,

or living in motels, or in families too poor to buy them some or all

of the universal first-day-of-school staples — sneakers, a

backpack,

a new outfit, fresh notebooks, and money for fall field trips.

So far HomeFront’s volunteers have uncovered about 568 people who

want to help the kids feel like all their classmates — in a word,

spiffy — when the school bell rings. That leaves 100 children.

Give one of them a hand, HomeFront asks. Or better yet, talk your

whole office into a pitching in.

Call HomeFront’s hotline at 609-882-1544 to get information on the

first-day-of-school needs of a child who could use a little help in

getting ready for that big day.

Top Of Page
Volunteer Please

Literacy Volunteers of America in Mercer County

are in "great need" of tutors to help their basic literacy

and English as a second language students. Tutors must attend seven

classes, beginning Wednesday, September 12, and held from 6 to 9 p.m.

The first session takes place at the Hamilton Library. Other sessions

rotate between that library and the Weaton Pointe Library in East

Windsor.

There is no cost for the training sessions. Participants will earn

certification in basic literacy and in English as a second language.

Call June Vogel at 609-393-8855 for more information.

Top Of Page
Business Meetings

For the complete calendar of events in central New Jersey, go to

www.princetoninfo.com/us1evts.html

Corrections or additions?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.