Some of the chefs participating in the app

Throughout decades she spent producing culinary series for PBS, and today as co-founder of the foodie-gathering website Share Your Table, the top question everyone asks Melanie Kosaka is where do Hawai’i’s chefs eat? 

After talking with good friend and Hawai’i’s master sommelier Chuck Furuya, and connecting with ICanHasCheezburger.com founder Eric Nakagawa, Kosaka has answered the call by creating the What Chefs Eat iPhone app. 
“We don’t need to know the 50 pizza places close to us, we want to know the top three, recommended by people we know,” says Kosaka, who asked just a dozen of Hawai’i’s elite chefs and farmers, from Alan Wong to D.K. Kodama, what they like to eat at their favorite hole in the wall spots and why. 
All users have to do is choose a chef or category, like best late night spot, and up pops their photo and brief, geo-targeted recommendations, with directions on how to find, say, Roy Yamaguchi’s favorite fried chicken at Zippy’s Kahala or Ed Kenney’s top noodle haunt Super Pho. 
Kosaka’s rolling out fresh San Francisco, New York and LA versions soon, as well as new categories like food and wine events and best places for barbeque. They’re also working on releasing a version for other platforms, but for now this seems the tastiest excuse to buy an iPhone.  
Whatchefseat.com

By Christine Thomas

**UPDATE 9/10/10
When I reached Ms. Kosaka she told me: “We have not (yet) launched the West Coast version, but … on Sept. 30 we are launching  one of the first locavore on-demand tv channels in the U.S.  The channel is the video complement to http://www.shareyourtable.com/.” Can’t wait to see it!

Eat the lotus @ literarylotus.com