One of my favorite hobbies is eating, And as much as I love eating food I also love cooking. My favorite food right from childhood however is, Banga soup dried with native pot with fresh or dried catfish eaten with starch. Sometimes I eat it with pounded yam, it also serves its purpose more than eating it with starch though.
I have always had the idea of creating a food app in fact i was working on the plan when unforeseen circumstances happened and i had to give it a break,
Yap! food app and No, not that kind of food app where you'll find a list of recipes or ingredients used for cooking. Or where you'll see tutorial videos teaching you how to cook, it's not even a food ordering or delivery app. It's something much more complicated than what you're thinking. Hang on!
I went to a board meeting last year in Asaba and after the meeting, I was craving to eat Banga soup and catfish. I bribed my colleague to drive me to a restaurant before driving home to Warri, in exchange I'll buy him a plate.
Who wouldn't accept such an offer? lolzz.
We drove to a restaurant hoping to find our delicacy, but the woman said she wasn't selling and directed us to another restaurant. We drove there and the lady said hers was finished. We asked where to buy it and she had no idea.
So we decided to ask a keke raider. He directed us to one local restaurant, men….. The sight of the environment alone will make one lose appetite, I love my hygiene so we had to leave.
Practically we used one hour thirty mins driving round the whole of Asaba looking for a decent restaurant to eat Banga soup and catfish, unfortunately we didn't find any. I was ultimately disappointed, so we decided to hit the road home with an empty stomach, however we stopped at a restaurant in Ozoro to eat just rice. As the saying goes "A beggar has no choice" .
During all this trauma driving here and there looking for restaurant, a thought was running through my head, "If there is a app one can download where you'll find a list of best restaurants with the kind of different food, drink and soup they sell in different states, the location, direction opening and closing time of the restaurants, prices of each food sold, if the restaurants deliver or not etc"…. Am sure we wouldn't be going through all this stress. It's just a matter of downloading the app, log in, find a restaurant that sells Banga soup and catfish and head straight there, with the directions from google map.
I mean think about it for a sec.; Other visitors who have gone to Asaba or different states for business trips, or vacations who do not know their way around must have suffered the same fate like me and my colleague, finding it difficult to look for a good restaurant to eat decent homemade food.
While driving home I was discussing with my colleague about the idea that popped through my head due to our experience in Asaba. And he gave me another clue, he said "To avoid the project from being overwhelming and tedious, starting with just a city in a state will be better at first before moving to another city in that state and then moving to a different state.
In Fact here was my plan; Since I have been familiar with Delta state all my life I picked Delta state to start working on, and of course since I was born and brought up in Warri I chose to start with Warri city.
The idea was to do a research, survey and carry out analysis on all the good restaurants including street food carts that serve not just the best food but delicious ones too.
This kinda project actually requires me going from different restaurants in different areas, to make inquiries and gather information about what food they sell. The job will be indeed tedious, you can imagine the whole area in Warri to cover, it'll be two or three people's job carrying out the research and not one. Definitely this kinda project will be long term.
But it's completely worth it. Why? You ask!
People love food, I mean literally like %100 of people must eat. When you find yourself in a different location where you do not know anywhere or place to eat and buy good food, how will you feel?? Instead of hopping into any restaurant to eat what you don't want to eat or garbage. Imagine if an app can tell you the direction and all the information about the best restaurants and street food carts where you can find your favorite delicacies and their prices. Just imagine!!