Zagat.mobi (the mobile sibling of the well-known Zagat Survey)uses a strap-line of Eat, Drink, Stay, Play – and it’s a fast and neat way to find local restaurants, hotels, and nightlife.

What’s to like about Zagat.mobi:

* Very clean, clear screens nicely formatted for your Windows Mobile device – as they should be with the .mobi TLD used

* Fast navigation at just about every level – to switch between restaurants, hotels, or nightlife via a dropdown; or to choose to list places by Neighborhood, Cuisine, Type, Features etc. within a category

* Great level of detail on individual places – with restaurants for example it gives you: address and phone details, hours, features (e.g. whether it’s kid friendly, does it have outdoor seating or live entertainment, does it do all you can eat or buffet, and lots more)

To get the full benefit of using Zagat.mobi you need to join, which does cost. They currently offer a 20% discount if you just fill in your email address, and offer a year’s membership for $19.95. The two main benefits of joining are that you then have access to user ratings and reviews, and it remembers your location (otherwise it’s a couple of taps and some text entry each session to let it know your city).

It also seems almost exclusively US-focused – when you set your location it only offers a few international cities.

You can give Zagat.mobi a try at:

http://zagat.mobi

And if you happen to be in Austin, The Clay Pit (detail shown in screencap above) is great by the way …

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