Food Network Local, map of featured restaurants

The FN Dish, a blog on FoodNetwork.com, recently ran a story on Louie and the Redhead Lady, a Louisiana restaurant recently featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. "Since the show aired [in January, 2011], Chef Louie tells me his business has doubled. He hired five new people and now meets guests visiting from all over the country," writes blog author Sara Levine.

For the whole story, click here. And for more posts about Guy Fieri on The FN Dish, click here.

At the end of the article, The FN Dish announces a long overdue Food Network interactive travel map, with markers for over 1500 restaurants featured from Food Network shows like Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, $40 a Day, Road Tasted with the Neelys, Kid in a Candy Store and more.

www.foodnetwork.com/local

Food Network Local is actually pretty neat. The closer you zoom in on an area, the interactive map shows more location details. The Food Network star's image is an easy indicator of in which show the restaurant was featured, and clicking "view more details" on a particular restaurant tag brings up an information page about that eatery.

The restaurant index page includes address, phone number and website when available. It also has a brief statement about what made the restaurant special on the show and on which episode the place aired. Also included are the restaurant's specialty dishes for which it is known and a link to a recipe when available.

At the time of this writing, the map's information is a bit incomplete, listing 387 diners, drive-ins and dives of the over 420 that have aired, and noticeably missing Mandeville's Louie and the Readhead Lady, specifically.

Food Network Local is currently a beta version. The only thing I can see missing are video clips specific to each location (please, no auto-play!). The most recent and upcoming air dates would be handy too. But by and large, we give Food Network Local a hearty "Fork Yeah!"

Visit Food Network Local and give it a whirl. We'd love to hear your comments, reviews and suggestions! If the web-based version of Food Network Local is successful, a mobile version is only a matter of time.

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-> more on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives <-