Recommendations for food apps, please!
I’ve been in a serious cooking funk lately, so I downloaded a couple of recipe apps in an effort to kickstart things again.
And then I thought, why not make a list of my favourite free food apps? Not just recipe apps, but food apps in general.
The opening image that greets you every time you open this app is quite exquisite, and possibly the most gorgeous on any of the apps I own. Use it to find good eats nearby, rate eateries, and follow other Foodspotting users. What I like is how visual it is – it’s all about the pictures of dishes and what looks good. There’s also a tab for specials, though it’s empty for my area. (I tried downloading Urbanspoon but it’s not available in Auckland. Sadface.)
I tend to stick to cheap eats, as a function of being on a budget and simply preferring ethnic flavours over traditionally haute cuisine. Take your fusion and stick it. While we’ve got a few classic favourites, it’s always good to find new restaurants. Metro magazine’s app comprises its top 50 fancy restaurants, 50 best bars, and 100 top cheap eats. Each listing includes a little bit on information about the food, the ambiance, and the address. I’d also like to see opening hours for each eatery – next year? (Also, one blogger with a very ambitious appetite is eating her way through the entire Metro list.)
The Insider (New Zealand only)
The Insider informs you about nearby deals and offers – that’s happy hours, two for one deals, and other specials in Auckland and Wellington bars, cafes and restaurants. You can search and filter deals to drill down to find what you’re looking for within quite specific parameters.
Epicurious offers both culinary inspiration and a baked-in grocery list so you can manage all your mealtime admin in one place. Narrow down recipes by categories such as low carb, low fat, decadent desserts, weekend brunch, and healthy snacks. My fave is the ‘I can barely cook’ tab for super easy meal options.
Like Epicurious, Half Hour Meals incorporates grocery list and offers search by ingredients, cuisine type, meal type, special dietary requirements, etc. I’m all about minimal ingredients and fast cooking times (hence why I watch Rachael Ray/Jamie Oliver and my favourite cooking blog is Stonesoup), so meals in 30 minutes? I’m all over it.
For a food blogger, I actually don’t use food-related apps other than Urbanspoon to find and record dining out experiences. I don’t bother with recipe apps because I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of a cook, and don’t handle recipes well.
The only food app I’ve considered purchasing is the Jamie Oliver app – I’ve heard some really good things about it from other foodie friends.
Thanks for the heads up on Half-Hour meals – it’s exactly what I need!
I really like Cheftap – I’m not sure if it’s available for iphone, but it is for android. You find a site you like with a recipe, and can import it into your app. It will sync with allrecipes.com and epicurious, and you can directly import from your pinterest pins.
Epicurious is amazing! Great interface, I find.
I have epicurious, I keep telling myself if I download food apps I’ll be more likely to cook. So far it just makes me hungry and more likely to order take-out, bad bad.
Food apps are good things. They can help a lot in trying new cuisines. One can lean “how to cook ” and act accordingly with these type of applications. In today’s world, everything is easy and this applications are one of the example of this statement. Thanks for mentioning all these useful resources.