Tampa: Culinary Conundrum, One In A Series

Todd Sturtz' New Book
(From Foodspotting.com)

We got a gent here who wrote a book all about the Tampa, Florida food scene. Yes, you read that correctly, Tampa AND food scene all in the same sentence. Now, mind you, I admire someone, anyone who has enough passion to actually write a book on any subject and especially when the challenge is great to make that book relevant based on the subject matter. He and Jeff Houck have taken on a Mt. Everest challenge.

  That being said, he posted it on Foodspotting.com as a spot and at Datz Deli, he must work there or something and when I commented on the post that writing a book about Tampa's food scene it was like writing about say, Kentucky Wildcats Football. Great league, just suspect whether the team in that league is great.






Jeff Houck, Tampa Food Writer
(From tbo.com)

I typically will not buy a book like this....more on the recipe side of the ledger if I buy a food book but hope his tome does well. His professionalism is a bit suspect however in that the comment I made was met with anger and a death wish for one and then defensiveness of "YOU are worthless, so my work is good" meme. Sad that he would allow himself to go overboard like that. Wonder what he would do if someone told him the book stunk. I have since apologized for any offense taken and asked where the book is available. And aw Leslie, no invite to mingle with the beautiful peeps in South Tampa at Datz? I drank a bottle of San Pellegrino over that snub and cried into my cheesecloth.

 So I decided to investigate and find out where Tampa REALLY stood in the world of great cuisine and foodie reverance. Since I was born on the Gulf Coast and grew up eating great seafood and in my life have lived in some great cities for eating I am more than qualified to make such judgments I feel, but to make sure I am digging in to see for sure. My favorite eating city is still by far, New Orleans and I have lived there along with Atlanta, NYC area, Chicago, Dallas, Destin and visited many other cities, islands and a few countries as well...Italy, Germany, Austria, Vietnam, Monaco, Canada, Mexico.

Columbia Restaurant, Ybor City
(From their website)

One thing I notice here in the Foodspotting universe is mostly subjectivity, which of course is going to be the main ingredient in any "review" but I see a lot of "connection" to the place as the reason for liking it or loving it. That is great to some extent but does not cure the ills of a place like Tampa, in my subjective opinion. One example I will use is The Columbia Restaurant, Ybor location, for this one. If you are from out of town and come in to eat here, I believe you are much more inclined to love or like it due to it's beautiful building, entertainment value, history and maybe one or two items on the menu. Now, if you are local and have been there a few times as I have, the veneer starts to fade and the real issues with the place come to light, rather quickly. Do I avoid it all together? No, I hit the bar for a couple of cocktails and an app or salad but not for an entire evening meal. Why? Last trip I was there for the full boat it was a business dinner for clients and out of town guests. The service was abysmal and the server actually told ME not to order paella, instead recommending a shrimp dish that was not even Red Lobster worthy and I am sure was warmed up in the microwave. And that night at least, the Sangria was literally red colored water. I do not know if we were chosen as the sucker table of the evening but that was the last straw for me.

This will be a series so stay tuned. Next up is an investigation into some of the top ranked lists around the world and USA on food and eating. Let's see where Tampa shines....or does not.

Alexa on Foodspotting

Not Alexa, one of the founders and current owners but Alexa.com, an Amazon company who tracks internet data and publishes it on websites around the globe. Let's take a look at some of the current information available for Foodspotting.com. Some of it may surprise you.

Chooky Work Spot
(From Foodspotting.com)

The first and most obvious thing I wanted to know is....WHO visits Foodspotting the most, WHAT is their make-up? Interestingly enough, based on other websites the audience for Foodspotting.com over indexes on females who are in the age range 25-34, have no children, are college educated and browse this site from work. So in actuality it appears that they may contributing to lost work productivity as the ladies tune in from their desks. Two site members I thought of immediately were Chooky, who may be over 35 and Leslie, a Tampa local prone to potty mouth and some delusions of grandeur but posting some good shots nonetheless. Foodspotting, can you say March Madness syndrome?

Chooky, an Aussie, posts all the time from work and has hundreds of "work" related shots like Vegemite on toast in her portfolio. Always look forward to another shot of a cup of coffee or a piece of toast.

They under index on all other age groups and also men based on internet averages. The rankings on a global basis and in the US were a bit surprising to me. While the numbers fluctuate on any given day or week I believe, they are ranked #25,545 worldwide and #13,953 in the USA. They also have almost 3500 sites that link to them. I do not really know how to assess whether these are good numbers or bad numbers but at anytime there seem to be around 220,000 site members at Foodspotting and again, do not know how active they are but assume the 80/20 rule or somewhere thereabouts.

Rankings Around The World
(From Alexa.com)

More fun facts include the site download time of 1.61 seconds and says that 54% of all websites are faster loaders which seems to make sense based on the content rich environment for FS. The current highest rank is in the Phillipines where it is ranked #2907. Almost 30% of site traffic emanates from the USA followed by, wait for it.....India with 8.1%. On another note, Australia is at 2.5%, a number I thought would have been higher.

Currently, site visitors visit 4.4 pages and stay on the site about 3:31 minutes, a number I found to be low but I suppose based on my usage it is low.

There is also an interesting add on at the bottom of the page on Alexa.com called Wayback Machine and it allows you to see how the site has evolved over time. Pretty cool.

I was also surprised to find another site called tastespotting.com which was actually ranked much higher than Foodspotting overall. #17,960 globally, #4157 in the US and has over 7000 sites linking to it. The potential for growth is there for Foodspotting but they need to address site "user friendliness" as the old interface was preferred over the current one and also step up efforts in member response and even enforcement of their TOS, something sorely lacking at this time.

Stay tuned as we discuss the Tampa Cuisine scene in the next installment and show you a new book out there by a local Tampa Foodie, Todd Sturtz!

Foodspotting: One In A Series

I have been participating in a new hobby for about two years or so now I guess. It is a foodie site called Foodspotting and is a place for posting food and related pictures called spots.

They have just announced that they will join Open Table, an outfit I have used for years now to reserve tables at restaurants. Seems OT bought them for $10 million so Alexa and team must be pretty pleased.

The transition will happen over the next little while it seems and it will be interesting to see how things play out going forward. They seem to have been all consumed with this merger or buyout and had little time to pay much attention to the FS site itself although there have been a few instances of back and forth communication with them and top users such as myself.

As with any open site like this, the array of characters runs the gamut and as always, you have those who are envious of others, have serious control issues or think the site should be run ONLY as they see fit. Then of course you have some delightful folks as well, a whole lot of them. And then you have the ones somewhere in between.

I currently have more spots I believe than anyone on the site and they also track rep points for different things for each spot you upload to your account on the site. I just went over 7300 last night on a visit to Kobe Steakhouse in Orlando. Some others are close. There are certainly some very high quality accounts on the site as well as people take in camera's to their dining places. In fact some of the top "ranked" in terms of rep points do not have even close to the number of images but they have blogs and other areas of outreach that allow them bigger followings and therefore rep points.

In the coming weeks and days I will highlight some of the fun on FS, some of the colorful people and some of the inside stories behind the scenes from a Foodspotting Top Spotter. Check back in FS nmembers and you may see yourself in lights here on my humble little blog. And you may even like what you see......and some may not.