A couple weeks ago, I was perusing the Restaurant Week list when I realized how hard the list made to find a good restaurant that is easy to get to. That is when I came up with the idea for filterable map of restaurants that incorporated Yelp ratings.

I pulled in Vinny for the project. We split the project down the middle. Vinny wrote a Python script to parse the data from the NYCGO.com website. I was in charge of the javascript that would be powering the maps, filters, etc. and also the UI. After a few days of programming and tweaking, we purchased the domain and launch restaurantweekmaps.com. The website is pretty simple. On load you are presented with pins marking all the restaurants available. Just use the slider and dropdowns to filter the list.

All the information is held in a Google Fusion Table. Fusion Tables make it really easy to visualize data that fits into a table. Obviously, the Google maps API is used to map everything. jQuery UI is used for the sliders and dropdowns.

We haven’t had a huge number of people using the site, but we think that might be because we launched towards the end of Restaurant Week. We’ll see if that changes come Restaurant Week Summer 2011.

To celebrate the launch of our website, and to take advantage of Restaurant Week, Vinny and I had lunch at Ai Fiori. Ai Fiori is one of three 4.5 star restaurants that are participating in Restaurant Week.

Vinny had the consommé that I unfortunately forgot the photograph. I had a salad.

For the main course, Vinny had the “Razza” skate wing and I had the “Tortelli” ravioli.

Then for dessert, I had the “Dark Chocolate Crémeux” and Vinny had the “Rosemary Apple.”

Overall the service and food were fabulous. I would highly recommend Ai Fiori to anyone who is interested in contemporary Italian cuisine. You can read what Vinny thought on his post about Ai Fiori.