Personalized Google Map

Prior to the creation of this blog, I documented my culinary experiments in the kitchen, as well as my adventures at restaurants around the New York, in a general-purpose personal blog under tight security. Of late, I realized that more and more of my blog entries were concentrated around the subject of food, so it only made sense to create a more accessible blog that would focus on just that -- food.




Rewind to January 2007. I had just spent a hectic semester in a doctoral program at Columbia University and realized that I saw very little of the city during those four months. So, I made a New Year's resolution to "see more of New York." I found the easiest way to do that was to try as many new-to-me restaurants as possible. A year later, I expanded that resolution to include restaurants outside of the five boroughs. I kept track of those restaurants with a conventional list, but that list wasn't helping me gain a comprehensive understanding of where I'd been.

That's when I turned to Google Maps where I plotted out the location of every restaurant I tried in 2007 and thus far this year on my very own map:



View Larger Map
Doing so brought something very important to my attention: I had completely ignored the Upper East Side of Manhattan! The snub wasn't intentional, of course. Previous dining outings were typically planned with a "let's find someplace in the middle" mentality. I was only partly fulfilling my New Year's resolution. Sure, I was trying new restaurants, but I wasn't really exploring the city outside of my comfort zone.

Since creating my Google map, which I've included in the "Links" section of this blog, I've successfully dined with friends on the Upper East Side. My review of our experience at the Heidelberg Restaurant on 2nd Avenue will be forthcoming, so keep an eye out for it!