TossDown – another way to find the best places to eat in your city

April 19, 2009 8:21 pm 9 comments

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This is a contributed review by a reader. We have confirmed that the author is not related to the website in any way. Thanks Omair for the initial tip.

Toss Down is another addition to the glut of portals providing information regarding local businesses for their users. Weâ€™ve coveredÂ karachisnob.comÂ andÂ yello.pkÂ and toss down at first sight appears an agglomerated version of the features of both these websites. However,Â apart from the impressive GUI, the home page seems to be too crammed up with information, unlikeÂ mazaydar.comÂ which is optimized to suit a user-friendly interface.

The search engine , however, is commendableÂ with various search options to limit your search. However, the database still needs to be updated and amended. For sadder is not in satellite town in Rawalpindi and nor is Cave any more in Rawalpindi. Plus I found a couple of outlets absent from the database, perhaps because it is still in the process of being populated.

A useful tool, the map mode does give the precise location of the restaurant, however,Â the locations of not all of the restaurants are available as yet, perhaps owing to the website being just in its beta version for now. Which brings me to another point that isÂ that the restaurant listings should be accommodated on a separate link , rather than having to scroll all the way down the home page to view them.

What sets tossdown apart fromÂ mazaydar.comÂ is the videos of the outlets, along with snapshots and user reviews. A touch of exclusivity, the website has featured discount offers for its users, in fact anyone who surfs through the page can avail the discount offer from the associated partners. However along with that, the idea of a blog covering the user reviews is a good idea for it provides an interactive board for people interested, giving them a first hand experience of the services being offered.

The toss down mobile version is also available and provides a quick on-the-go way to read user-contributed reviews of restaurants in your city, with all its search features, map modes and contact details integrated, will prove to be a viable tool for many.

Whats left to be seen, ofcourse, is that since this website will eventually rely on user-contributions for fair reviews, how will the quality and quantity of these reviews fare over time. Naturally none of the food review sites will become dominant unless they have the bulk of the most reliable reviews on the net.

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9 Comments

Samir Feroze

April 20, 2009
3:57 pm

Salaam Osama,

The link to http://www.yello.pk in the article is incorrect and makes it appear as though our site is down, which in fact is running fine on yello.pk and is still in private beta. Hope you can correct this soon.

Thanks
omar

April 21, 2009
2:09 pm

All the food sites I’ve seen are crap. This one is no exception. I give it 6 months before it stales out. Any betters?
Insane

April 21, 2009
5:29 pm

@omar
Its been in the business for more than a year but yes ofcoarse we can only wish it to be damned! You shouldnt even have given it 6 months.

Anyways I personally think its a great show with images/videos/detailed menus/extensive search/discounts/restaurant profile management & mobile version!
Shahid Durrani

April 21, 2009
5:43 pm

Great website, i have not seen a website of this caliber. “Precise and attractive”

S.Durrani
Food Enthusiast
rocker

April 21, 2009
5:49 pm

I have used the mobile version http://mobile.tossdown.com and it works like a charm, great search options along with rich set of features available on the go, an overall nice effort and something to look forward to.
SR

April 21, 2009
5:54 pm

I think they are coming along well. We should appreciate good stuff coming from our own people.
The website needs some cleaning process; too much information on one page sometimes moves you away from what you are actually looking for.
Reviews and updated restaurant information would be a challange, lets see what happens.

Goodluck!
hs

April 22, 2009
10:49 am

I use tossdown alot. especially wen i am looking for a new place to try. i also had a bad experience at cafe mondelano recently and it felt really good to be able to vent on the website. i have been told that all the restaurants get an automatic copy of the user review so i certainly hope cafe mondelano paid attention!
Obaid

April 22, 2009
6:34 pm

@omar: Have you tried Mazaydar.com? The whole idea behind it is to allow you to share your fav location with others and see what others recommend.

@Shahid Durrani: Try Mazaydar.com, I am confident that you will be pleasantly surprised.
Qazi

April 24, 2009
11:16 am

@ Samir
the link is fixed thanks for pointing out

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