Who doesnt like a juicy burger?!

Who seriously doesn't like a juicy burger now and again? I know I do!!!! But I must say the manliest of burgers that I have attempted to consume was from Jackson Hole. These burgers are deliciously monstrous, juice and ketchup dripping down your chin good. Their like 1/2 pound each!!! I'm a total fan of most of their burger creations, but if you're wondering what people have to say about the individual choices take a peek at Grubia.com, select city and type in burger. No restaurant guess work necessary! The hard facts of what burger might tease your palate in just the right way is on Grubia! Happy burger chomping!

Grubia leaps ahead...

In the latest move on our ever expanding coverage of all that is grub and needs to be found, Grubia.com is adding 3 more cities this weekend – San Francisco, Chicago and Dallas. Tech team spent a lot of time to make sure that the experience that was created for the city of New York is not only replicated but also enhanced with this new release. Do you know that we now cover 250,000 number of dishes (grubs) served at 12,000 restaurants. The inside story is that the Grubia team is still hungry for more. We intend to cover at least 10 cities by the time the year ends.

All this would just be numbers unless we hear from you. Do you have any suggestions on improving Grubia’s user experience? Any specific functionality or feature that you would want us to add? Which city would you like us to cover next? So please feel free to share with us your thoughts and ideas. You can always leave a comment on this post or reach us at contact@grubia.com.

Secret is out now!!! We will be creating online buzz to help more and more people discover the simple yet incredible “What to eat? Where to eat?” experience. So what are you waiting for? Folks spread the word and start grubbing…

Menu Language

I have made several trips to “Mai’s” – a Vietnamese restaurant. Other than country diners its one of the very few restaurants open till 4 am in my neck of the woods. The trips have been with various groups of friends and under varying levels of influence of liquids altering the state of mind.

I have often recommended the garlic chicken to a willing ear. “Chicken sautéed with garlic and onion” is a very bland, to put it mildly, description of the dish on the menu. Last week I was intrigued to see a new dish on the menu. It was the “Special garlic chicken”. The description said “Garlic chicken with vegetables in a special sauce”. It was priced 30% higher than the Garlic Chicken. The server said to try it as it’s “better” than the Garlic Chicken and there is a reason it costs more. What I ended up ordering is irrelevant.

The incident made me think about the importance of dish descriptions on a menu. How can a restaurant use it to its advantage to promote a particular dish. Most of the restaurants use the classic trick to add complexity to names of dishes to increase the price. “Hand rolled dough, stone baked and topped with a medley of berries” will command a higher price than “Bread and Jam”. There are many schools of thought on the “Menu Language”. I will leave that to the owner to decide the best dialect.

I am not aware of studies done on the impact of phrases like “Customers’ Favorite” & “Chef’s Favorite”. I strongly believe restaurants can use it to sell their best dishes. The menu can have a section where a card with a new dish name can be inserted. This could be anything from “Customer’s favorite”, “Top seller of the month” or even something more dynamic like, “This really smells good today”.

I would certainly be tempted to try dishes with such descriptions. It will be interesting to study such impact on dish sales. What do you think? I will leave you at that thought. Its 2 am and the garlic chicken beckons … BURP!!!

The concept of Grubia in the real world

Last night over dinner with friends we ordered Manchurian for the appetizer. One of us commented that the Manchurian at “Mayuri” is the best they have had. The others didn’t share the same enthusiasm about the food there. That was unusual because majority of the times we share the same taste.

Mayuri has an extensive menu that serves food from various parts of the country. In all probability one would be better than the other? How can a customer enjoy the best that the restaurant has to offer? I read this article in the NYT . The article brings up another issue that the restaurants and customers have to face. Here is a piece of the article:

“New York Business, however, praised that same steak dish as “a standout,” but disparaged the lamb shank as “too timid in the flavor department.””

What does this mean for the restaurant? The Lamb Shank wouldn’t be selling too well. Even if the restaurant changes the dish and makes it “better” based on the review what can it do to change the perception? Only way to do it is to have customers taste it and talk about it or in other words refer it to others. A strong referral is traditionally as an effective tool seen in a consumer or a retail setting. It would be invaluable here. There are numerous studies done and articles published that emphasize the importance of referral on business. A personal favorite being the Net Promoter.

Grubia is a step in that direction. We are working on a model to rank dishes not by just simple ratings. Soon we will add the Grrrrrrrr in promoter.

Exciting to see users ask Grubia what to eat

Its an exciting feeling to see some one use your product. Specially so in the very early start-up phase when every single user gets the adrenalin pumping.

Just happened to be at a friends place who had been following the site and now uses it to check out what to eat in the restaurant she is about to visit.

This day she was going to eat at the TiffinWallah , a nice indian restaurant. And she checked out some south indian grub reviews on grubia.



This year we hope to make such searches routine and on a massive scale.

Lets go grubbin, folks!!