Welcome to Deep Dishing. Before we get started, let’s get one thing straight right now: Deep Dishing is a forum of positivity. This is a community site designed to guide you to what to order, what’s delicious, and other good tips when you’re heading to a Bay Area restaurant, bar, or bakery. If there was something you didn’t like, well, on Deep Dishing, you don’t talk about it. This site is about sharing what’s good, what rocked your socks off, what you’d tell your best friend to get, and why you’d want to return somewhere.

The concept is this: any time you’re going to a restaurant (especially a new one), you’ll be able to go to Deep Dishing first and quickly learn what are the best/can’t-miss dishes to order, what drinks are notable, where to sit, and any other cool tips, like secret menu items, happy hour specials, and other tidbits that make you a power diner. When you show up to the restaurant, you’re armed and ready with useful knowledge, and hopefully stretching your dollar as far as it can go on the best choices.

Don’t you hate it when you go somewhere and then later on a friend says, “Wait, you didn’t get the fried chicken/agnolotti/uni risotto/[whatever the hell it was you were supposed to order]?” Yeah, I hate that, too. Almost as much as I hate spending $28 on a dish that sucks. Every place does at least a few dishes really well, and Deep Dishing is about sharing what those are—which is especially useful to know the first time you’re going somewhere.  

You can vote and comment on dishes, which is an important function of the site—if you agree that the fried pigs ears at SPQR are amazing (which they are), you can give that dish a thumbs up, and it will rise to the top in popularity. There is also the Tip Please! forum where you can ask questions, or help solve the dilemmas of your fellow diners.

If you had a negative experience somewhere, or there was a dish you didn’t care for, Deep Dishing is not the place to talk about it. We’re going to wait and see if everyone can (please) abide by this rule and keep it positive—otherwise, we’ll be forced to enact some policing (wooooo, pull it on over, cranky person!). I’m super excited to launch Deep Dishing, which will be a friendly place to share and quickly find details about what’s good in restaurants in the Bay Area (and beyond). We’re starting locally (Bay Area and wine country), but the site’s locations will expand soon. And some functionality and cool features will be coming, too—just you wait.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to input your pictures, menu links, restaurant hours, and Twitter feeds—it’s what will help make the site useful for everyone. Oh, and be sure to follow Deep Dishing on Twitter to keep up on special highlights and news.

Have fun dishing it up.

~Marcia Gagliardi
founder of Deep Dishing and tablehopper.com