Usually my iPhone app keeps me busy to latest RSS and news feeds, engage to my social network profile, read e-books, play games, check out latest movies and fashion trends other than chatting with my family and friends. But, I didn’t know how it could aid me in making dinner plans. Astonished I was when I realized I can book dinner reservation right on my iPhone. There are some dedicated apps for that! Isn’t it great?
Tap, Toggle, TickÂ
Booking reservation at restaurants has been daunting until I discovered these iPhone apps. What a relief knowing that I don’t need to spend hours on searching online or at local listings of restaurants. Not only that, I can now skip even more daunting part of persuading soft-spoken maître d’hôtel who are trained to turn down customers during busy hours softly. Thanks to these iPhone apps, I can narrow down my search to currently open hotels at my desired date and time. What’s even more? I can further refine my searches to the size of the group or the party size, cuisines, dishes, type of meal (even coffee and quick bites etc.) and choice cuisines etc. Keeping all these points in mind, I have selected following iPhone apps for fast dinner reservation.
YelpÂ
Compatible to: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 4.0 or later Â
Price: Free
Yelp comes first to my list for its renowned online presence that it has compressed inside its iPhone app version. This app brought what I needed the first and foremost – to read unbiased restaurant reviews and identify the worst restaurants in the city. So, when I tried ‘Italian, NYC’, it returned quick links of Italian restaurants within the proximity of NYC including bars, cafes etc. apart from restaurants. Each search result contains feedback of customers. I also checked out lucrative deals available on some eateries, book a table by using OpenTable right from within the app. Recently, the app integrates augmented reality to ease search process. I just need to move my iPhone around me to search a place around me and I locate all the options within my vicinity. Amazing! Try it here.
OpenTableÂ
Compatible to: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 4.3 or later
Price: Free
Though Yelp lets me access OpenTable from the app, I kept this iPhone app handy on the screen. The app is useful in both ways – whether to book a table at a preselected restaurant or searching for an option from 15,000 restaurant entries, according to your date, time and group of diners. The app also helps me read guests’ reviews – no fabricated compliments anymore.  Try it here.
ZagatÂ
Compatible to: iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 3.2 or later
Price: $9.99
Though a bit expensive than the other two in this list, but Zagat comes handy to search for fresh new outlets in the city. The iPhone app maintains an extensive database of 30,000 restaurants including reviews of those. Moreover, it saves my Wi-Fi use by letting me browse eateries especially when I am journeying through flight or ship or anywhere where network reception is poor or zero. Wait, there are more reasons why I considered this app worth the price, because it lets me book a table, browse and filter restaurants by cuisines, costs, ambience and service, check out menu in advance and spot signature dishes of a restaurant, search a place using iPhone camera with its augmented reality features, search as per ‘Best of…’ in a given city, view photos of food and find tips and recommendation on foods. What else do you want? Try it here.
Well, if you want to try some more apps and ideas on making dinner plans than deciding on the right one for you, check out Restaurant Nutrition and Foodspotting iPhone apps for searching restaurants and book a table – to avoid being turned down by maître d’hôtel.
