I use Google Maps – it lets you save and share favorite places. It basically helps me answer the two questions of where should I go tonight, and where would I recommend to someone else? To keep track of places around where I live, I have a list which I call Downing, after the street I just moved to in Brooklyn. I'm trying to get to know this new neighborhood, and one of the ways that I do that is through discovering food and coffee shops within a walking radius of where I live.
When people say, “Hey, I'm going to be in your neighborhood – what are good places?” I don't do the work of trying to come up with a one-off recommendation – I get them to like this list, and they can open it up and figure it out for themselves. I also use this a lot when I travel – last fall, I went to visit my mom in Qatar, and these were all the places I went. So the next time I or anybody I know goes to Qatar, we’re covered. Here are the art museums, and the restaurants I really enjoyed:
