App lets you rate by dish, not restaurant

It was all about the quest to find the best buffalo wings
in Seattle. Despite the help of websites and apps
like Yelp and UrbanSpoon, two friends still hadn’t found
their ideal dish.

“A lot of people tend to review restaurants,” noticed
Chaitanya Sareen, co-creator of Chewsy. “What if there was
a really simple way for people to try food and rate it?”

So instead of pointing people to well-reviewed
restaurants, people could search by dish. Look for the
best pizza, pad thai, or green chicken in all of Seattle
for free.

According to Sareen, it’s the food that saves everything.
While some restaurants are reviewed by ambiance and
parking as well as their food, people on Chewsy are
searching for the best dish on the menu. Then, they can
also rate those dishes based on a 5-spoon rating system.

There is a fairness, according to Sareen, that’s
introduced in the dish-by-dish review. Restaurants aren’t
judged by poor service received by a waiter or waitress on
a bad night, but instead on the size of the plate that’s
served and how good it tastes.

Sareen said Chewsy encourages its users to be social, by
sharing their reviews and even setting it up for canned,
whimsical, one-line reviews of the over 800,000
restaurants in their database. Like religion and politics,
but less sensitive, Sareen said food can be a lightning
rod for conversation.

If you disagree with him on where to get the best pizza in
Seattle, (Big Mario’s on Capitol Hill,) you’ll probably
get an earful.