Database Makes It Simple to Grab a Byte Before Grabbing a Bite

“Let’s Eat Out!”

That’s the name of a new software product offering information on more than 4,000 Orange County restaurants.

“Actually 4,415, and we’re updating even as we speak,” said Suzanne Stotlar of Anaheim-based Kanawha Data Retrieval, producer of “Let’s Eat Out!” The first edition was completed in May; a new one is expected by the end of the year.

According to Stotlar, a search function allows users to identify restaurants by location and 64 types of cuisines, including “tearoom” and Egyptian. The detail function allows search by name or partial name, freeway exit or cross streets, atmosphere, view, credit cards, delivery, takeout, entertainment, cost range and hours.

“Say you wanted to look for a seafood restaurant with ocean view that takes MasterCard, or a place with belly-dancing--there are 17 restaurants with belly dancing in Orange County,” she said. “You can print out several records at a time, up to 25, and sort those by freeway exit or price range.”

Restaurants are not evaluated.

“We are a database,” Stotlar said. “We are not trying to compete with anybody.”

The IBM DOS- and Windows-compatible home user model is $26.95 plus tax. (There’s a business version with telemarketing functions for $395.)

Several restaurants, such as Mon Chateau in El Toro, offer discount coupons with the package.

For information, phone (800) 632-0572.

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Wine tastings are one thing, but a glass tasting?

Actually, it’s still the wine that will be sampled at a comparative tasting at the Robert Mondavi Wine & Food Center on Wednesday--five wines, in fact. But it’s the stemware that will come under scrutiny at the Riedel Tasting, focusing on whether the design of a glass can enhance the taste and aroma of fine wine.

“We’ll taste a Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, in our big round Opus glass, then in the Riedel glass made for Cabernet, then in the Riedel glass made for white wine,” said center manager Clare Warner. “You don’t need to know anything about these wines to taste the difference,” she says.

In a column about Riedel of Austria glasses, Times wine writer Dan Berger wrote after a comparison tasting of Pinot Noirs with Georg Riedel that, while he didn’t find that the glasses improved actual taste, “there was no arguing that the aroma was improved” and that few glassmakers “have succeeded in the area of sensory pleasure the way Riedel has.”

Georg Riedel and Warner believe that the glasses do improve taste.

Said Warner: “I know people who now take Riedel glasses with them to restaurants.”

The cost of $35 per person includes a wine and cheese reception; class begins at 7 p.m.

1570 Scenic Ave., Costa Mesa. (714) 979-4510.