MakeUseOf Directory » dining

GrubWithUs: Have Dinner With Strangers & Make New Friends

Dave LeClair — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:01:06 +0000

Going out to dinner is great. You get to have some delicious food and you don’t have to deal with the stress of cooking and cleaning. GrubWithUs believe going out to dinner is great too, but they also believe it is much more interesting to go out to dinner with a group of strangers and possibly make some new friends.

Basically, if you live in one of the supported cities you can go to their website, pre-register for a meal and then go out to with some cool people you have never met. They give you a restaurant, date and time and you pay for a seat. After that, you just show up and enjoy the meal with all the other people who pre-paid to go. It is a very novel concept, and one that just might be crazy enough to work.

Features:

Meet new people over a nice meal.
Easy pre-paid system. All you do is show up, eat and socialize.
Plans to roll out in other metropolitan areas.
Profiles to find out more about the people you will eat with before you go.

Find GrubWithUs @ www.grubwithus.com

Bitehunter: Find Daily Dining Deals & Discount Offers In Your Area

Hammad — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:01:40 +0000

BiteHunter is a handy web service which gathers daily deals, discounts on different restaurants, coupons and more. The website is integrated with Google Maps and displays daily deals on the map, so you can see whether any restaurant in your area is offering something special (e.g discounts, offers, etc) or not.

Clicking on the restaurant will display the latest deals along with the location of the restaurant. You can track daily deals, offers, happy hour deals, discounts and more everyday. The search engine even shows you “specials” on menus of different restaurants, so you might find something you just love to eat.

Even if you can’t find the deal you are looking for on the map, you can search for any cuisine you like, for example: Cuban, Chinese, and Japanese, etc. along with the location in which you are looking for. It will show you all the deals and offers available in the selected area.

The service has an application for iPhone users as well so that they can search for deals on the go.

Features

Real-time updates about daily deals, discounts.
Free to use with no registration required
Available on iPhone
Available in US only.
Similar tools: Snoopf, RestaurantCoupons, KidsMealDeals, UEatCheap and KidsEatFor.

Check out Bitehunter @ www.bitehunter.com (via Lifehacker) (By Hammad from TechnicallyDigital)

Opendining Order Anywhere: Order Food Delivery & Take-Away Via The Internet

MOin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:01:25 +0000

While ordering food deliveries, people often wish they had the menus of as many nearby restaurants as possible. Here to help you with that is a web service called Order Anywhere.

Order Anywhere is a service offered by the site Open Dining. You can start searching for food places nearby by specifying your location and the food type you are looking for e.g. pizza. A list of restaurants is populated and displayed. You can click on a name in the search results and have its menu displayed.

Clicking on menu entries adds them to your shopping cart. When your order is complete you can check out and have the food delivered or have it ordered as takeaway. You provide the site with your name and phone number only.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you order food delivery and takeaway online.
Lets you search for nearby restaurants.
Provides menus of nearby restaurants.
Browse over 30,000 menus
US only.
Similar tools: CampusFood, GrubHub, Munchery and DiningIn.
Also read related article: 5 Sites To Quickly Order Food Online.

Check out Open Dining Order Anywhere @ www.opendining.net/order (by MOin from Urban Savior)

Donteat.at: Tells you what restaurants to avoid

abhijeet — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:01:02 +0000

Don’t Eat At is an app for mobile phones that helps users check if they should eat at the restaurant they are planning to go to. The app currently works only in New York City, and uses the Health Department’s graded inspection scores as the benchmark for deciding if the restaurant is fit for the public.

The restaurant needs to score below 28 to be considered fit. NYC has 1,660 restaurants that score over 28, and that’s what this tool alerts you about. It works with Foursquare check-ins, and is developed by Max Stoller, a computer science student at New York University.

Whenever you enter a restaurant that the app considers unfit, you will get a text message alert from the app. The obvious requirements are that the phone should be connected to the Internet and you should be signed into Foursquare.

Features

App that tells you where you shouldn’t eat in NYC.
Works with Foursquare.
Sends a text message when you enter a restaurant that could close soon.
Similar tools: SporkNYC and CleanScores.

Check out Don’t Eat At @ www.donteat.at (by Abhijeet from GT Mobiles)

BusyLunches: Work Lunch Planning Made Easy

Israel Nicolas — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 19:01:38 +0000

If you are always busy and on the move, it gets difficult to organize meetups with your friends and colleagues. If you are the type who would like to have lunches but can’t seem to make it work, then you should check out BusyLunches. This lunch planning app lets you create lunch dates and invite friends so you’ll know the time, place, and who will be coming. The application supports Linkedin and lets you log in using your Linkedin credentials.

BusyLunches starts with you creating a lunch date. Fill in a descriptive name, then the date and time. Choose a common location where most of your friends are near . You can get restaurant suggestions from Foursquare based on the distance of the venue from your working place. Then select and invite guests to your lunch to notify them. Your friends will be able to set their status whether they are available or not for the proposed lunch date, so that you can adjust the lunch schedule easily to accommodate them.

BusyLunches is a nifty social tool for organizing events with friends and workmates, making sure that you have a quick invite and RVSP sent in seconds.

Features:

Free and easy to use.
Create quick working lunches dates.
Select the venue, date, and time.
Check status of friends to see who are attending.
Supports Linkedin.
Similar Tools: Lunchn, Lunchstr, and Lunchwalla.

Check out BusyLunches @ www.busylunches.com

AllergyEats: Easily Locate Allergy Friendly Restaurants

moin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:01:36 +0000

People with food allergies always have a tough time deciding which restaurant to go to. They need to be aware of a restaurant menu and its allergy-friendliness beforehand. Otherwise the restaurant might end up serving something the customer is allergic to and that can have dire consequences.

To locate and rate allergy-friendly restaurants, head on over to Allergy Eats.

Allergy Eats is a free and simple to use website that help you find out which restaurants cater to customers who are allergic to certain food groups. On the site’s homepage you will get a list of food groups people are normally allergic to.

To locate an allergy-friendly restaurant you can check the groups that match your allergies; other groups can be added by a link in the bottom right of these checkboxes. Next you enter the address or specify the area for which the site will execute a search; you can do this step via browsing by map as well. The restaurants that match your criteria will be listed.

These restaurants and their ratings have all been submitted by users. If you have any allergy-related experiences with a particular restaurant, you can add the restaurant and/or rate it.

Features:

Allergy-friendly restaurants locator.
Lets you view which restaurants facilitate customers with food allergies.
Lets you select particular food groups you are allergic.
Searches the area you specify.
Lets you add and rate restaurants.
Similar tools: SpecialGourmets.

Check out “Allergy Eats” @ www.allergyeats.com

KidsEatFor: Locate Restaurants Where Kids Eat Free

Kaly — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:39:57 +0000

If you eat out with your family often, KidsEatFor is definitely for you. It allows you to locate restaurants where kids get to eat for free. Just type in your address or zipcode (US only) and hit “search”, KidsEatFor will then give you a list of nearby restaurants that offer kids specials.

In case you are aware of the restaurant in your area where kids eat free but its not listed, you can submit it for inclusion.

Features:

Find kids eat free restaurants in your area.
Search for restaurants by zip code or address.
Sort results by different days of the week.
Restaurant’s address and phone number is also presented.
For iPhone users there is an iPhone-friendly version as well.
Similar sites: KidsMealsDeals.

Check out KidsEatFor @ www.kidseatfor.com

CHOW Restaurants Regions: Find Restaurants By Cuisine

abhijeet — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:54:33 +0000

Restaurants Regions is a recently launched food guide by CHOW, the well known food site by CBS. While there are many food and restaurant guides available on the internet, what makes this guide unique is the ability to filter results by the type of cuisine. And it’s not just about the main cuisines like Italian, American, Mexican etc. It dives deep into the kinds of cuisine and presents you with a huge number of options ranging from Cuban to Mediterranean cuisine, bakery stuff to Chinese food, vegetarian to vegan, Pan-Asian to Japanese and much more.

You can also filter by location, type (like kid-friendly or romantic) and price (from low to high). The guide is currently US only and covers all the major cities.

Features:

Restaurants guide by Chow, the popular food site.
Check out restaurants based on the type of cuisine you prefer.
Covers major US cities.
Huge range of cuisines to choose from.
Other search filters like location, type and price also available.

Check out CHOW Restaurants Regions @ www.chow.com/restaurants/regions (by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)

DiningIn: Group Food Ordering Online

abhijeet — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:55:41 +0000

DiningIn, which delivers meals to home that are ordered on the web, recently introduced a group food ordering feature. Currently the service is available in 5 major US cities – Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Denver.

It works like this – you create an event as a host and send invites to guests. There are many customization options available. Choose menus from various restaurants including prominent US chains like The Cheesecake Factory. Also let the guests choose their menu and pay for their food. This works great when there’s an office party where everyone pools in the money. Orders should be placed at least 90 minutes in advance.

Video Demo:

Features:

Web based food delivery along with a nice group food ordering feature.
Available in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Denver (more cities coming soon).
Choose menus from local and national restaurant chains.
Let the guests choose their menu.
Pay yourself or let everyone pay for themselves.
Set spending limits when everyone is paying for themselves.

Check out DiningIn @ www.diningin.com (via ReadWriteWeb by Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)

SpecialGourmets: Find restaurants for people with food allergies

Kaly — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:44:40 +0000

SpecialGourmets is a community driven web resource that acts as a global guide to hotels, shops and restaurants specifically catering for people with food allergies, dietary restrictions and celiac disease. It currently lists over 15,000 restaurants and shops all over the world.

Users can search by location and filter results by service type (restaurant, hotel or shop) or dietary requirement (Nut-free, Shellfish free, Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Peanut, Egg-free and Soy-free). The results are displayed on the map as markers, clicking on particular marker reveals the establishment’s name, address and the type of products it offers.

Moreover, SpecialGourmets provides an online magazine with latest news and articles, and has a recipe section where users can search and share recipes for people with special dietary needs.

Features:

Comprehensive guide to hotels, shops & restaurants for people with food allergies.
Lists around 15,000 restaurants and shops all over the world.
Site is also available in Portuguese and Spanish.
Users can search and filter results by allergy and service type.
Offers free online magazine with latest news.
Recipe section where users can search and share special recipes.
Free, no sign up required.

Check out SpecialGourmets @ www.specialgourmets.com