I find the online Zagat a great resource. And I was pleased to see a new (to me) feature the other day when I was trying to find a place for a work-related thank-you lunch.

I don’t exactly know the technology behind it (tho it looks very AJAX-like), but the functionality is sweet…by dragging sliders (see below, left), you can refine the search results:

Unfortunately, the links for the individual restaurants can’t be opened in a separate window or browser tab. So if you want to click on a restaurant, you have to do it in the current window. And if you go back, you see your initial search results; it doesn’t save the state.

So…pretty close, but no cigar.