We’ve all been there before. You go to a restaurant based on a series of rave reviews on Yelp or TripAdvisor, only to be utterly disappointed by the food, service, and/or cost.
Every time I have a food experience that proves to be the antithesis of its online review, I’m somehow astonished that two people could have such wildly different experiences at the same restaurant.
Should I really be that surprised though? After all, everyone has different tastes and interests when it comes to food. Unfortunately, we also have little insight into whether the food interests of someone writing an online review are similar to ours or not. Still, it’s frustrating to have high expectations (or your wallet) crushed by a disappointing meal that came highly recommended by someone else.
Enter TidBit – the app connecting its users to the friends and foodies they trust. To join, simply create a profile complete with a picture and bio, just as you would on a social media account.
After dining out, select the dishes you’ve tried from TidBit’s pre-loaded menus and rate each one individually. If you’re eating at a place like Rose’s Luxury where the menu changes frequently, there is an option for you to create a custom entry for the dish you’d like to rate.
A restaurant’s overall rating is then generated based on the cumulative average of the dishes tried.
Users can also include pictures, rate the ambiance and service of the restaurant, and provide additional feedback in the comments section.
Once published, restaurant reviews appear on the TidFeed for your followers to view. If you see an interesting looking restaurant on your own TidFeed, you can add it to your wish list to revisit later. Eventually, you’ll be able to invite your friends to try a restaurant with you directly through the app!
If you’re walking around the city looking for a good restaurant, another way to utilize TidBit is to pull up the map to view the ratings of restaurants nearby. This allows you to avoid wandering into a restaurant on a whim and spending money on a bad meal.
I love TidBit because it enables me to focus on the foodies and friends I trust when I’m making a reservation or deciding between two dishes at a restaurant. While the tastes of the reviewers on TidBit are just as different as they are on Yelp, by eliminating some of the anonymity behind the reviews I’m able to more accurately gauge which restaurants I should put on my wish list.
Specifically, TidBit enables me to remove the strangers from my pool of reviews, highlight the foodies I trust, and perhaps mute (yes…there’s a feature for that) the friends I’m following who have different food tastes than me. TidBit also exposes users to other food-lovers they may not already know. As you’re starting out on the app, you’ll automatically follow TidBit’s Featured Foodies, local food influencers the TidBit team trusts!
Additionally, TidBit allows me to keep a record of all the restaurants I’ve been to, which will be useful as TidBit expands to more cities so that I can track where I’ve eaten while traveling.
Overall, I love this app and am perplexed as to why something like this hasn’t been created already. Every foodie truly needs TidBit in his or her arsenal!