New Yorkers like to eat, and we like to eat well. And, who could blame us? The city is stuffed full of options, with more than 45,000 restaurants to choose from. There aren’t too many other cities in the world where a decision to go out to eat is so complicated, with fantastic options available for every single meal.
With so much to choose from, and such an enormous food scene, finding the right meal can be stressful. Here are some NYC-based tech tools to help you make the most out of eating in the city:
Fooji is an emoji-based food delivery service — yes, you read that right. All you do is text or tweet Fooji with a food emoji, and for a flat fee of $15 per emoji, the company will deliver you a meal in under 45 minutes. The company is even partnering with Minibar to bring you emoji-based beer and wine on demand.
Munch Ado calls itself a ‘Hanger management’ service, and with good reason. Type anything from the type of cuisine you’re hankering for, or the name of a restaurant into their search bar and they’ll have something for you. When you’ve finally figured out where you want to eat, you can reserve a table or order delivery without leaving their app or site. Munch Ado also does a little bit of data crunching, and will tell you which restaurants are the most popular in the city. So, if you want to know what the city’s most popular sushi restaurant is right now (it’s Ooki Sushi on the Upper East Side), the information is just a button push away.
The Infatuation offers curated restaurant reviews and guides, and recently starting to get into providing restaurant recommendations via SMS. The company’s guides are super-popular, probably because they’ve figured out what people are actually looking for. Want to eat brunch outside? They have you covered. Have a date, but forgot to make a reservation? Don’t worry about it.
Seamless/Grubhub has been in New York forever, and they have the skinny on just about every delivery option in the city. In fact, there’s not a whole lot of places that will take delivery orders over the phone anymore. You can type just about any sort of food into their search bar, and chances are you’ll have some options. Have a hankering for octopus? I looked, and there are 47 places willing to deliver deliciously cooked, eight legged sea monsters to my door.
Eater is kind of like a daily newspaper, BuzzFeed and Gawker all merged into one, and focused solely on food. They report on the latest restaurant openings and dining trends, as well as restaurant reviews. They’re probably best known for their heat maps and their lists of hot restaurants, which make it super easy to see where you should eat right now. Here’s what’s hot in Manhattan this month — apparently it’s all downtown.
Foodmento is an app that makes it easy to find new restaurants, and organize meals you’ve already enjoyed. The photo-heavy platform is basically a food-porn site (in a non-sexual way). The app lets you see real, candid photos of the meals people have eaten at restaurants. If you find someone with a similar palate, you can click over to their profile and see other meals they’ve eaten and photographed — which is oddly, and voyeuristicly enjoyable. Don’t believe me? Here are Fred Wilson’s favorite coffee spots.
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