Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that dining out at restaurants is one of the most favorite pastimes of Pakistanis, regardless of the age group. Be it the weekday or weekend, you’ll find restaurants buzzing with people from different walks of life no matter what city you’re in; there’s no secret as to why it’s a thriving industry, albeit a pretty competitive one. While there are plenty of restaurants for one to try out and new ones popping up frequently, the process of finding restaurant information, reviews, directions, guides and other content isn’t always super convenient.
To create a more convenient and enjoyable experience for people, we decided to develop a new app called Hungerist, which combines features of restaurant discovery (think Yelp, Zomato, or Google Maps), a news outlet and social media. We combined all three of these because we believe that this would help everyone make better decisions about which restaurant to go to.
Think about it. You read or hear about a restaurant opening up or are near a restaurant you’ve just never been to. You then want to know specifically what people have said about it. Based off what you hear, you want to go to the restaurant so you go seeking information about it’s menu to see if it’s in your budget and what times it’s open. That’s the journey we want to help with.
And it’s now available for everyone on Android and iOS!!! Or you can also just access it on the web.
Here’s what you do with the app so far (there are new features we’re working)
See what people have to say about the restaurants around you
Like on other social media platforms, you can see what people around you are talking about. In this case, it’s focused on what people have to say about the restaurants around you in a newsfeed (we took a lot of inspiration from Twitter and Instagram). These reviews are upvoted and downvoted by users on Hungerist to determine if the review itself was useful or not.
Search for specific restaurants
You can search for a new restaurant a friend might have mentioned to get more info about it. Or, you could also just search for ‘coffee’ or ‘pasta’ to see what restaurants near you serve what you’re looking for. We’re working pretty hard on the search feature to make it very easy for you to find the restaurant of your choice with little to no effort.
See what’s near you on a map or in a list
Often times, you’re just looking for a restaurant that’s close to you but you also don’t want to go to the same restaurant you’ve been to multiple times already this month. That’s why we have a discover section that allows you to see a map or a list of restaurants close to you.
Filter what you see
Sure, you can see a list of restaurants near you now. But what if you’re looking for a specific type of restaurant? What if you want to find restaurants that have Chinese food? Or what if you only want to see coffee shops that have wifi? That’s what we’re hoping the filters can help you with.
Find reviews or leave reviews that offer more details
Reviews are really helpful in helping us figure out where we should and where we shouldn’t eat. But there’s a problem with a lot of the reviews we leave online: they’re very basic (or in some cases a rant against something someone at some restaurant did which has nothing to do with the food). Our goal is to introduce a review format that was more holistic and useful which is why Hungerist reviews are based on 5 different criteria.
Read about what happens in your city’s dining scene
Content is king. That’s something we’ve always believed in at MangoBaaz which is why it’s central to Hungerist. Given dining is such a central part of our culture, we want there to be a news/information portal that focuses on just food/dining, rather than it be a category within a website. So in the FoodLog section, you can see articles and guides about what’s happening in your city with regards to dining. New restaurant opening up? Hungerist will let you know. Looking for the best burger restaurants in your area? Hungerist will have a guide for you.
See a restaurant’s menu before going there
Many times, it’s helpful if you can see a restaurant’s menu before going there in a convenient manner so you know how much the meal might cost you or what you might want to order. Taking that into account, we’ve designed Hungerist so that you can view the menu of a particular restaurant from their profile inside Hungerist.
There are more features that we are currently working on to make the app more useful for our community. We’d love it if you would download the app and share your feedback so we can make a product that you find useful. Happy eating!!!
Oh, and be sure to leave some reviews 😉
See also:
I Used Tinder, The Online Dating App, In Pakistan For A Month And Here’s What Happened
