Last week, a couple of the Diners.org staff picked up some promotion cards in mid-town Manhattan last week: $1 drinks from Bartab.com.

We understand most of you would be shouting "PICS OR IT DIDN"T HAPPEN."

The strategy behind Bartab.com is pretty simple:  1) a bar or eating establishment sets aside a certain number of $1 coupons on Bartab for that month, 2) Bartab user buys the drink coupon 3) Bartab user takes the coupon to the bar/establishment and buys their $1 drink.

So in effect, you are spending $2 on a drink.  A dollar for Bartab (coupon) and a dollar at the bar (actual drink).  Still, not bad.

Yes, yes, there is a backside with instructions too.

The catch here for consumers of course is that the bar sets what drink (and amounts) when they make the coupons.  For establishments, this is cost efficient advertisement  with the concept that once a person is drinking at your bar, they are most likely going to have a second drink.  It is also very likely that the drink may not one of the $1 coupon drinks.

Clever.

Hopefully, the staff here at Diners.org will try out Bartab soon… whether or not we’ll keep effective notes before or after we hit the “car bombs” mark is another story.

Is there anything that the team here at Diners.org wants to accomplish, is for our readers to help us out by sharing with us the same things we write about.  Interesting food quirks, experiences eating out, nutrition articles that are worth a look, or whatever is else worth mentioning about food and the places we eat at.

Recently we received an email from “Rebbeca F”.  You may remember her from our Valentines Day contest.  She came across a website called “Whipped Lightning: The World’s first alcohol-infused whipped cream”.

LIGHTNING. WHIPPED IN A CAN.

Our first reaction was as if we were hit in the face with a Chuck-Norris-Grade-Roundhouse-Kick-of-Awesome.  Just look at the name “Whipped Lightning”.  It’s as if Zeus decided to help the culinary world of pastries and sweets by throwing down LIGHTNING BOLTS of POWER to fuel your sweet tooth.

Then to make things more groovy, the whipped cream is alcoholic (WARNING).  We can imagine the scene as a buzzed Dionysus walks up to Zeus as the lord of Olympus is making whipped cream and decided to help out.

The Website for “Whipped Lightning” is also cool in its own regards.  The catching name-phrasing continues in the form of Whipahol, a line of alcoholic beverages with Whipped Lightning at its center.  This cool marketing scheme goes beyond enticing potential “whipalogists” in the science of “whipalogy” (their words, not ours).  The product itself comes in the form of several flavors such as “White Chocolate Raspberry”, “Coconut”, and “Spiced Vanilla”.

A couple of facts about “Whipped Lightning” from their FAQ:  You are not supposed to refrigerate this, since apparently the cold separates the alcohol from the cream.  They also mention that you are supposed to turn the can upside down while spraying (for those of you who use whipped cream aersol cans, please let us know if this a standard trick).

Unfortunately, since the team at Diners.org is based in New York City, we can’t get our hands on “Whipped Lightning” yet to review it.  Coodles to the people behind “Whipped Lightning” though, they give you a “Where to buy” section to help you find this product.

Once again, thanks to “Rebbecca F” for telling us about this awesome product!  We look forward to hearing from the rest of you too!

One of the problems with cooking from a recipe (whether from a cookbook or online source), is that you must write down your ingredients and head to the market.  That is, unless you are fortunate enough to have the ingredients at home.

Another problem, or annoyance rather, is that you must plan your dinner ahead.  In a society that moves as fast and as spontaneously as ours, the time necessary to muse over a cookbook is not a common luxury.

So, what to do?  Bringing a cookbook around everywhere with you is clearly not an option.

Fortunately for us, cellphones and mobile devices allow us to connect to each other in ways we never before imagined.  As a result, food websites like Easy Chef Recipes take advantage of this technology to make preparing foods easier for us.

A couple of screen-shots from the Easy Chef Recipe app at the Apple Store. We look forward to trying this app out.

With direct access to their 15,000+ recipes is the Easy Chef Recipe food app. This $1.99 app  is available to you from the Apple Store and going by its screen-shots and reviews seem to do the trick.

On a side note, what we don’t like about the app and the site is that there are no images of the finish dish at all.  An imagery clue would be nice.

The Team here at Diner.org is very interested in trying the app out and seeing if it is as convenient as it looks.

Today, a friend of mine introduced me to one of her favorite places online for recipes: Recipezaar.com Us here at Diners.org are always curious as to why some diners prefer one place over another (websites, restaurants, supermarkets, food carts, etc).  So we went to check it out.  What we found is pretty neat.

For our friend, what Recipezaar did to win her over is their database search engine known as “Sifter”.  Once we tried it, we can see why.  You can try it yourself by clicking here.

The "Sifter" engine

What is pretty cool about “Sifter” is that you can shift through their collection of recipes based on features like the types of ingredients you have on hand, the equipment you have, the kind of eating style you want, and more.  This saves you time from doing the tedious problem of sorting through it yourself (very useful if you have company over REAL SOON and you  are caught short-handed).

This is a great tool and we are pretty happy that websites like recipezaar.com are taking the extra step in making our culinary lives easier.  The team here at diners.org are also wondering what other unique features other food websites are doing to set themselves apart…