Cloud T9

Culinary texting services have foodies OMGing.

by Amy Strauss

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I felt a bit overwhelmed as I stared at cases stocked with gorgeous pink salmon steaks on a recent trip to Whole Foods. Too many options. Not enough info about what was what.

So I sought out some help. I sent the word "fishsalmon" — no space — to the numbers "90430." Seconds later, my phone lit up with a new message advising me that "organic farmed" would be a good choice. But Atlantic salmon, the text continued, is considered "overexploited."

The recommendation came courtesy of Friend of the Sea (FotS), a worldwide project that emerged from California's Earth Island Institute. It provides consumers instant guidance regarding which species should be avoided in the name of sustainability. (Common supermarket fish such as salmon and bluefin tuna can be found on the World Conservation Union's endangered "redlist.")

But the immediacy is not just for convenience's sake. Since fresh data is constantly rolling in, FotS director Paolo Bray and his team founded the service to provide consumers with the most up-to-date fishery stock assessments available.

Previously, organizations like Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch produced pocket resources offering similar guidance — but few things can match the instantaneous nature of SMS (short message service). And FotS isn't the only culinary-based service to realize it. Companies both local and national are rolling out initiatives to get food info — and food — into the hands of Generation Text.

Founded by chef and wine educator Jerry Comfort, Napa Valley's eWine Match is a free mobile pairing service that allows shoppers to easily find good wine matches for meals. Send the primary protein of your dinner — say, chicken or halibut — to "411511," and Comfort's search engine will bounce three suggestions back to you. (The five- to six-digit numbers, known as short codes, are sold and regulated by corporation NeuStar in coalition with the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.)

Since wine pairing is not as simple as "whites go with fish," says Comfort, his smart database prioritizes primary flavor, then protein. He constructed the eWine algorithm with San Francisco's Fine Design Group. "We are constantly growing," he says, "and as we get new and unusual text messages, we are continuing to expand our database."

Though based in California, eWine Match is Pennsylvania-friendly — the database currently features more than 100 wines available in state stores. And it doesn't discriminate based on taste, either. It suggests that Chateau St. Jean Sonoma Chardonnay will go great with a juicy chicken marsala — as will Gabbiano Chianti with a slice of frozen cheese pizza.

But what UPenn graduate Michael Saunders liked best couldn't be found in a bottle. Moist and wrapped in butcher's paper, a tuna hoagie from West Philly's Lee's Hoagie House caused his mouth to water — and his creative juices to flow. Longing for an easier, more convenient way to get his hands on his favorite sandwich, Saunders set up campusfood.com, an online ordering network targeting students.

Saunders' business, which began in Philly, is now based in New York and is available on 300 college campuses. And it recently added a mobile ordering option. If you reside around Drexel, St. Joseph's, Villanova, Temple, La Salle or UPenn, you can text "36368" to place an order at your favorite eatery. (First, however, users must sign up and build a list of "favorite orders" on the Web site.) "Many of our customers requested mobile ordering, saying they wanted to text their orders while leaving class," says Saunders.

Similar to Saunders' service is GoMobo — something like an EZ Pass for hungry people. Launched in New York in 2005 by Yale alum Noah Glass, GoMobo allows users to skip lines by ordering and paying for meals via text before even setting foot in the restaurant. From Subway and Dunkin' Donuts to sushi, Thai and Indian eateries, GoMobo is active in more than 250 restaurants in and around Manhattan.

Better yet, Glass is launching his text-ahead business (which works off the short code "466626") in Philadelphia this month. Jake's Philadelphia Cheesesteaks in the Shops at Liberty Place has already signed on, and Wawa just announced that it'll begin using GoMobo, as well. Manager of New Initiatives Robert Riesenbach says the service was rolled out at two of the convenience chain's Malvern locations on March 10, with eight more stores — most likely including UPenn locations — on board in the coming months.

Yes, ingesting ethical info at Whole Foods is all well and good. But now Shortis are just a few short keystrokes away.

(editorial@citypaper.net)