“What to eat ah?” That’s probably the most common question Singaporeans ask everyday. Don’t you wish that someone else could decide for you instead? How about letting a Telegram bot do the job?
Shared to the Singapore’s subreddit, redditor /u/jasaaan said he created the @EatWhatSiaBot Telegram bot to help people decide what to eat.
In his post, he shared that while the bot is now up and running, it is still a work in progress. Changes are underway, as a bot like this requires a lot of data and he is hoping for more user contributions to make it a more well-rounded bot.
In response to a Redditor's comment, he said that the recommendations were curated based on his own favourite places, input from friends and a cafe hopper on Reddit who was more than happy to share.
How it works
All you gotta do is to talk to the bot, and click start.
It’s nice to know that this telegram bot is halal friendly, though the halal option can be switched on and off by simply typing the “/halal” option.
Upon typing “/”, you will be given a list of options to select from.
Of course, its main existence is to help you decide on what to eat, if you click on "/WhatToEat", the bot will give you five options for you to choose from. If you can’t decide on the type of cuisine you prefer, the bot is also able to "surprise" you.
If you don’t like its suggestion, you can click on “Something Else”, which will prompt the bot to throw out another suggestion. If you like what you see, click on “Thanks!” and you’re good to go.
If you want to search for something to eat based on a location of your choice, just click or type “/nearby”. You can either choose to share your location, enter your postal code or click any of five main areas of Singapore.
We selected "West" to see what options it would give us.
We're impressed! And this is just the beginning for this Telegram bot.
/u/jasaaan shared that his plans for the bot include improving the core functionalities such as filters for vegan, vegetarian and healthy food, as well as adding new places and more food suggestions.
According to the bot's data, the top food of the day (Jan 13) was beef stew. How about going with what the crowd's eating?
With technology constantly evolving, we are grateful for the folks out there who create apps and bots to make life easier for all of us. On behalf of all the people who can't decide what to eat everyday, thank you /u/jasaaan!