TVFoodMaps for Android

CNET Editors' review

by: Jaymar Cabebe on July 03, 2012

TVFoodMaps for Android is an app that takes you on a tour of all the restaurants featured on your favorite Food Network and Travel Channel shows, using GPS. For self-proclaimed food enthusiasts, it is a veritable treasure trove of eating advice.

Launch TVFoodMaps, enable GPS, and watch the app immediately get to work searching for notable restaurants in your vicinity. The home screen lets you choose to do a keyword search or jump straight to a map of nearby hot spots. For users of the paid premium version, you can also browse by TV show and even get notifications when you're in the vicinity of a restaurant that was featured on a show.

What's great about TVFoodMaps is you can view results in either a map view or a list view, both of which show distance from your location as well as the titles of the shows that featured each restaurant. Click on an item to see additional details, including the name of the show's host, recommended items, and ratings. Registered users can rate (thumbs-up or thumbs-down) restaurants and add them to a list of favorites. From the details pages, you can also share listings with friends using Android's share function.

The TVFoodMaps user interface, while much improved over previous versions, still isn't what I would call attractive. In addition, the fields of information for each restaurant are terribly inconsistent, with the only mainstays being address and show title. I also had some trouble with the app's performance, as it froze a number of times while I tested different functions.

Overall, TVFoodMaps has improved but is still far from perfect. It could use a bit of a face-lift as well as some engine work to improve its stability. Also, its database of information could be better organized and presented. But all that said, I still love using it, since in most cases all I'm looking for is a name, address, and show title, all of which the app never fails to provide. For that reason, TVFoodMaps is a worthwhile download for hard-core food-TV fanatics, especially those living in or visiting heavily represented cities like New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.