Food delivery - straight to your stomach

An interesting Ad - when a daughter asks her Mother for her favourite dish, the Mother refers to food delivery app to get it. Gone are days when Mothers toil in the kitchen to make their kids's favourite dishes healthy and tasty. Moms who were seen to be packing food items for travelling children like making masalas, papads and ready made powders are now  preferring to stay away from kitchens don't seem to be good. But food delivery apps come in handy whenever you chose to eat from whatever restaurant you may prefer.

Be it a hot afternoon or a cold rainy night the delivery boys weather all that to get your food. Two wheelers fly along the road with the delivery boys carrying square shaped bags on their backs with red, orange and green wordings. At main road corners you see them awaiting with their smart phones for the next orders, at near the gates of SEZ areas catering to the crowds delivery and outside the restaurants until the orders are getting prepared. There are the new group of boys in town!

Tried few of these apps recently and would like to record their experiences here.

Food Panda: Have been using this for around 3 years. In the beginning it provided offers of 30% to 50% and food was of both good quality and Quantity. The draw back was the offers are valid only for online payment not for cash on delivery even if the amount is around Rs.100. It covers all restaurants near our residence and gives updates on the completion of food preparation, pick up and the way to delivery. Sometime ago all restaurants offering food delivery via this app used to have the food panda stickers at their place like sodexho meal pass. But off-late this app is getting dominated by others. Its cash on delivery option has to be applicable for all orders to make it viable to small orders. Now this has also mingled with Ola app.

Zomato: This app apart from delivering food has been providing the service of booking tables in restaurants. By giving rating to restaurants it helps us choose the ideal dine in place. To boost food delivery it gives 50% off on first three orders and maximum amount discounted is Rs.100 and all the 3 order have to be placed in the same month itself. When we made our first order on 30 June and second order on 7 Aug the second was said to be not applicable for discount as its been over a month. The app's chat service  gives you quick response and its table booking option provides direction to the restaurant as well.

Swiggy: These people do not rely on the restaurant's ability to deliver unlike the above two. Their primary service is to get food from where ever we like and deliver it to us. Zomato is now doing the same. The beach side small-time food sellers also find themselves listed here. It offers 50% off i.e a maximum of Rs.100 for the first 5 orders but food prices recently are seen on the higher side. Swiggy even takes up orders for sweets and savouries from popular sweet shops and chaat corners. The plus is that it takes up order cost with minimum amount of Rs.50.

Uber Eats: This is part of the uber taxi app too. While trying to install this app in any mobile or tab without a sim card it doesn't allow you to do so. This app is quiet choosy with the restaurant listings, not all restaurants in Swiggy and Zomato are found here. Similar 50% off is provided here too. Tracking of food in real time is available till the food reaches your door step. Cuisine wise food listing is given in the app.

Dine in: Easy navigation to book tables before hand in famous food giants like barbecues which are to be pre-booked on week days too.

Happy eating folks!