Caroline Pardilla

Get LA/SF City Experts (and Me) in Your Back Pocket With the New Know What City Guides App

— by Caroline on Crack

Bar + Kitchen by Caroline on Crack

Cheers to this new app for LA drinkers!

You’re out and about in LA and in need of the nearest watering hole. But being a connoisseur of fine cocktails and/or craft beers, you only want to find the very best places in your immediate area. Searching for bars via Yelp will pull up too many options. And then there’s that matter of having to comb through each review wondering if you can even trust what any of these Yelpers are saying.

But what if there was an app that allowed a source that you loved and trusted, ahem, to handpick the best bars for you? Lucky for you there IS such an app, created by Escape Apps LLC, called Know What app! This brand-new iPhone/iPad/Touch app, which just launched, offers a variety of guides created by tastemakers for both Los Angeles and San Francisco. Each contributor has created a specific guide covering different aspects of the city, be it the best hiking trails, the best pork dishes or the top architectural icons. It’s a quick and easy way to get your city’s experts in your back pocket!

Even I have a guide. It’s called Drink Here: LA’s Best Craft Beer and Cocktail Bars and covers my favorite bars, drink spots which incidentally are the best in LA and that I’ve heavily “researched.” Heh. For your convenience, most listings include links to the bar’s up-to-date drink list! So you can see if anything strikes your fancy or check what’s on tap before you go.

Currently I have over 50 picks but will constantly add to it as well as provide mini guides (like where to find the best current seasonal cocktail in town) that will update for free.

The Price Breakdown

The basic app, Know What Essentials, is $2.99 and gets you 400 places out of the thousands available. So that’s 200 spots in L.A. and 200 in the Bay Area (amounts to about a penny a place) and you get a taste of each of the guides. Now if you want a particular contributor’s complete guide it costs an additional amount, about 99 cents to $3.99. Mine costs $1.99!

And I’m in great company! Check out just some of the many guides available:

Hit the jump to see a complete list of guides.

Feel free to purchase the app here. Happy drinking!

PS: If you like the app, please review it in the iTunes store. But if you don’t, feel free to email me using the contact tab at the top of the page. Hee.

Los Angeles

Aileen Holmes, local artist: OC: Sooo Not the Land of Bland
Caroline on Crack, carolineoncrack.com: Drink Here: LA’s Best Craft Beer and Cocktail Bars
Eddie Lin, deependdining.com: Deep End Dining
Esotouric, tour company: Charles Bukowski’s LA and On the Trail of the Black Dahlia
Francesca Lia Block, author: LA’s Dangerous Angels
Gustavo Arellano, columnist, editor, OC Weekly: The Best OC Restaurants!
Jessica Ritz, tastertots.com: Discerning Dining for Accompanied Adults
Joshua Lurie, foodgps.com: Global Eats: Southern California; Prized Pig, LA’s Best Pork Dishes
LA Bizarro, bestselling guidebook: 50 Ways to Lose Your Mind
LA Freewalls, street art collective: The Biggest Street Art Gallery in the World
Los Angeles Conservancy: Top 50 of ’60s Architecture
Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder boingboing.net: Unicorns, Carnivorous Plants and Other Angelenos I’ve Known and Loved
Modern Hiker, modernhiker.com: LA’s Best Hikes
Raina Lee, author: Karaoke Domination
Rebecca Woolf, girlsgonechild.net: Fashion & Fun (for You & Your Fam)

San Francisco

Burrito Eater, burritoeater.com: San Francisco’s Top 30 Taquerias
Camper English, Alcademics.com: The City’s Best Cocktail Spots
Carolyn Jung, foodgal.com: Ultimate Guide to Bay Area Dining
Catherine Weis, Local Social: Oakland’s Creative Renaissance
Gary Singh, San Jose Metro columnist: Things in San Jose that Don’t Suck
Joshua Lurie, foodgps.com: Global Eats: The Bay Area
San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association: SF’s Secret Parks and Hidden Oases
SF Heritage: Essential SF: The City’s Architectural Icons; The Building Blocks of Auto Row and Pacific Heights: The Epicenter of Old San Francisco
Thinkwalks, ThinkWalks.org: Everything Explained and Local Nerd!
Vegansaurus.com: The Best Food in the Bay Area as Picked by Genius Experts
Victoria Smith, sfgirlbybay.com: Sfgirlbybay’s Bohemian Modern San Francisco
White Walls: San Francisco Street Art