Release the chowhounds

In preparation for some upcoming events, I joined Chowhound yesterday. I'm relying on the foodies of the web to give some recommendations for restaurants in cities I'm not familiar with, much like my post on July 19th. I'll be coming for the specific information on one place, as it appears lots of CH newbies do, but I may stay for the discussion on my own neighborhoods. The "South" board has a very lively group of posters talking about Durham and the whole Triangle area of NC. I'm already learning a bit about the farmers' markets, wine stores, bars, and restaurants through their perspectives.

Another thing I like about Chowhound is their philosophy on posting. To stay focused on the topics at hand, there are of course no posts about politics, religion, and so on ... it's just about food, obviously. (Another message board I frequent, Flyertalk, has a large "off-topic" section where anything goes, and I think it has ballooned far beyond what founder Randy Petersen intended.) But beyond that, posters are encouraged to be as specific as possible about their requests, and to avoid posts of the "This Bistro Sucked" type. The result is the dizzying array of information that it is now; no, it's not perfect (a forum topic that claimed to index information about hundreds of Chicago restaurants contained nothing but broken links), but it's still a good browse.

And no, CH didn't pay me to write this. :D

Update: It's now October 24th, and I've already encountered my first Chowhound scandal! Well, maybe it doesn't rise to the level of scandal, but! The chef of a Chapel Hill restaurant, Jujube, has accused the site of deleting all threads and messages with any mention of his restaurant. The story is covered by local food bloggers Varmint Bites and cookingeatingdurham. I'm off to see what else I can find out.