Four Bites in 2025: I'm your answer to dining questions, and more

AI-powered real-time restaurant recommendations, 'Where to Eat in Buffalo 2025' coming soon

At Kasalta, San Juan, Puerto Rico, part of my Puerto Rico eats guide coming in January.

Four Bites is a unique problem-solving service that will make your life better.

You might know about the restaurant reviews, recipes, and good news about great eating opportunities in the Buffalo area that flow into your inbox with a Four Bites subscription. In the last year, that $.97 a week, $50 per year expenditure brought patrons more than 200 news columns, reviews, guides, and a dash of investigative reporting.

But Four Bites is a killer app in a whole different way: It’s your solution to some of life’s perennial nagging questions.

Like, where should we go to dinner?

The Four Bites difference is that reading restaurant reviews is just the beginning of the service you get. When it comes to deciding what to eat, your problem becomes my problem.

Four Bites patrons looking for the right restaurant for their particular needs send me a note. We talk about their options. Then I put on my reporter hat and go out to get information from primary sources, the people running the restaurants in question.

Then report back, giving the patron fresh, verified intel upon which to base an evening’s escapades. I don’t just give you more information to sort through, I help you decide.

Consider your subscription dining insurance. If my intelligence reports prevent you from blundering into a regrettable table for four, I’ve earned my salary. (Called that because Roman soldiers were paid salarium, money specifically to buy salt.)

Finding things subscribers want is a service I particularly relish. Using my research skills and contacts to help people find what they want feeds me too. Want to find a real mincemeat pie, a halal lamb, or a gluten-free restaurant? No problem.

Where can I find this?

Where do I need to shop to make this recipe?

Where can a person with celiac get a safe meal?

Where can I find kosher, vegan, halal, organic, whole-grain, locally-raised, heritage breed, naturally sweetened, unrefined oil, food?

Things are always changing, which is why I confirm facts with principals before publication. You’re getting information from a pro, which means higher-grade intel than looking at social media. Operators who are doing everything themselves don’t always have time to update hours and offerings.

Ever organized friends and family into an evening out, only to meet in an empty parking lot next to a dark restaurant?

In an information environment polluted by misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance, what’s a 99.9 percent pure stream of information worth to you?

To thank subscribers who renew for 2025, I have a holiday bonus on the way.

Where to Eat in Buffalo 2025 will gather all my Four Bites reviews, guides, and site-specific intel in one easy-to-use guide, with index. Folks who renew their subscriptions will receive its digital form, a phone-formatted PDF, on Dec. 24, Christmas Eve.

Despite my history in the dead tree industry, I’m also contemplating a paper-and-ink version, in compact guide format. That’s not a promise, just a notion, as I do not have solid cost numbers yet.

Here’s a few more Four Bites features for 2025 currently under development.

AI-powered instant restaurant recommendations. Huy Duc Pham, a former student of mine at UB who went on to make the Forbes 30 under 30 in tech is building an AI-powered restaurant recommendation system based on my reviews. Patrons will be able to use it to get instant dining recommendations 24/7.

Nosh Mob will livestream from restaurants I want to save, inviting folks to come eat at a worthy place that could use their support. Nosh Mob will have a talk-show format, with planned guests, plus guests drawn from people who show up.

My Cuisine 101 series will resume with the canceled-on Akec Aguer taking center stage with South Sudanese cuisine from Nile River. The Downtown Bazaar where I hosted Ethiopian 101 with Zelalem Gemmeda and Burmese 101 with Elizabeth Sher is closing by Dec. 31. But I’ve been talking to representatives of other suitable venues, and expect to continue the series with Aguer in February.

A paid subscription does more than buying words and images. You’re supporting those community-building efforts too, while getting to offload some of your most nagging questions to a professional: me.

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