How to find good restuarants (…therefore, good food) in Pakistan…

Business Tech, Innovate.pk Add comments

Food is serious business in Pakistan. And really, the world over. Zagat , a website for reviews and eatery listings is a multi million dollar business.  Since i know Karachi best, alot of these sites have been covered from a karachi angle, though I think a Lahori would know food alot better…A few years ago when I started karachimetro.com, I felt frustrated that there was no one seriously looking into this space in the Pakistani market. After all, atleast 6 million connected pakistanis are looking to satisfy their need for good food everyday. Here are three websites/apps that I follow and use very frequently to find a place to order from when I’m in town…there are many more that are entering the fray, it seems like all of a sudden, everyone wants to be in this space!

 

Food listings, reviews, user updated and crowdsourced. Very well built, great UI.
What I want : Phone numbers to be easily viewable almost as soon as i put in my search. A quicklist style view with nice large numbers , menus and ratings.

 

A super detailed directory, coupled with pretty pictures. Hosts premium paid listings. Very useful and quick. The reviews if they come around might be biased, but still useful for numbers on everything as well as menus. Since they charge for premium listings, this is not the place to go to if you want object user related reviews of places. They also do alot more than just food, which is useful, especially the cab/taxi numbers page.
What I want : Better load times for menus, easier to use UI. Right now its just a bunch of HTML and UI is sacrificed in favour of SEO. Really needs better UI actually. I cant focus on numbers that are coloured gray and pasted onto , erm, gray.

 

(Disclaimer: I made this so it suits my needs perfectly hence i am obviously biased). Orginally I coded this (and did the data entry, bleh) over a weekend for a few friends to use as a “quicklist” for phone numbers and menus in 2005, this has been expanded and is more focused on delivery and menus. This makes sense to use if you know you want to order in but dont have the number, or the menu on you, which is mostly the case with me…if i am at a friends house on the weekend, i want to be able to go to a website, open the menu , call the number and order what i want…
Find the place , get the  phone number, open the menu and dial the number with the menu on the screen and place your order… 

 

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2 Responses to “How to find good restuarants (…therefore, good food) in Pakistan…”

  1. Mohtashim Says:

    G&W also did a post recently on all the places to eat out:
    http://greenwhite.org/2009/04/19/tossdown-another-way-to-find-the-best-places-to-eat-in-your-city/

    and here is Jehan’s post in January

    http://jehanara.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/discover-review-and-share-info-about-your-favourite-eating-outlet-on-mazaydarcom/

    hope this all helps you in making a quick bookmark list of food places to keep in your back pocket

  2. carlo Says:

    Hey this was potentially one of the most effective articles I have go over on the topic so far. I don’t have any idea where you learn all your info but keep it coming! I’m going to send a few people over here to read this. Awesome, totally amazing. I am just getting into spitting out articles myself, nothing close to your writing skills (lol) but I would love for you to have a look at my stuff sometime! right here

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