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A self-identified “chowhound,” White started with food-focused groups like Seattle True Foodies and ended up joining about five Meetup groups.

Before Lhasa Fresh Food, which opened last year, there was Lhasa Fast Food, one of the worst-kept chowhound secrets in Queens, often described as being “in the back of a cell-phone store in Jackson Heights.”

In the evenings, Nakayama turned the tiny storefront into the San Gabriel Valley’s most unlikely hot ticket—a “secret Japanese chef’s table,” Chowhound wrote—cooking eight-course meals for just a handful of customers a night.

At Chowhound, the writer Pamela Vachon was more emphatic: “Entertaining at home for Valentine’s Day has become synonymous with actual love. Actual love. You know, the kind that doesn’t require reservations, overblown expectations, underwhelming menus, and the casual eye-rolling of disgruntled restaurant staff.”

While Food52 is now a leading player in a very crowded food website field that also includes the likes of Serious Eats, Cookstr, and Chowhound, a decade ago it was a more novel concept.