I appreciate Zomato, very much. What the good folks have Zomato have done for us food lovers is quite brilliant. Looking for a night out? Yes, Zomato is where you should look. Maybe a day in bed with some warm food? Yes, check Zomato. On your way back from work and craving a nice hot bowl of Khao Soi? Look for the nearest place on the Zomato app. And it all works, almost always.

Top on the functionality list of Zomato is the call-to-connect directly from the application, a breeze really. Next best bit would be the search functionality and the sheer number of filters one can apply. You can basically go down to details like Budgets, WiFi Availability (Although not always correct) and, my personal favourite, Happy Hours! Comes in very handy towards the end of the month! Another good feature is the reviews bit. It’s good to read what other users really think of restaurants and the bit that makes it better is that the reviews go straight to people at the restaurants being reviewed, and they do write back! Two-way communication really works here.

What Zomato offers purely in terms of data and information is great. But is it a one-stop solution for all things foodie? Nope, not at all. While I do refer to Zomato, I do use my judgement while picking places. Their list of top restaurants (Top Trending on the web version, Top 25 on the Android application) is something you should take with a pinch of salt. While it may be based on reviews by users and whatever other metric they use like number of searches etc., I have my own reservations about some of the so called ‘top’ places based on experience. It’s really something worth laughing at for real foodies. For example, Barbeque Nation in Connaught Place is number 2 on their list. Really? Have you ever compared the kebabs there to, say, the Great Kebab Factory? The difference in quality and taste of food at both places is quite epic. While I understand there is subjectivity involved here, it would really help the Zomato cause if there were experts reviewing these places. We’d, then, not have Barbeque Nation & Pirates of the Grill on 2nd and 3rd in the top 25 restaurant list. While these restaurants might be trending purely because of their mass appeals, the reality is that there needs to be a top 25 list made by experts, unbiased and 100% based on the experience at the outlet.

Then there’s the search function. I search for ‘Kailash Colony’ and I get Cafe 27 on top. For what joy, I will never understand. I get the distance logic, but what when a bunch of outlets are located in the SAME locality with the SAME distance? It’s not even alphabetic! Zomato calls it relevance, I don’t know what to call it honestly. Logically, it should be filtered by Distance, followed by either rating or alphabetically. Really silly if you ask me. Almost makes it seem like Cafe 27 is paying them to get itself listed on top.

One bit that would work really well for Zomato is offers. Yes, please let us know about offers going on in specific areas. If Hard Rock Cafe is host to October Fest, I’d like to know when I search for Saket. This would really help get the message out there and will be something people really appreciate primarily because of the relevance of the offer.

Yes, Zomato works. But it’s not reliable as far as I’m concerned. It is to local restaurants and pubs what Google is to searches – Search for what you want and then sift through the information.