Whilst staying in and whipping up a simple meal is a great way to save money on eating in London, not everyone wants to do that every night – right? (Less gloss over the fact that some perhaps don’t have either the inclination or skills! *coughs politely*) You may also be staying somewhere in London where there’s little opportunity to cook…but plenty of opportunity to have a takeaway meal. (i.e. You don’t have a stove, but you do have a front door to welcome a delivery driver!)
Now, as simple as the concept of ordering takeaway food is, anyone that’s moved somewhere new or is staying somewhere temporarily – such as visiting London – may have come across the usual problem of finding reputable takeaway joints. Do you just do a random search online? Find an address in a telephone book? (Joke, of course – who still has those?!) Pick up one of those scrunched up leaflets you may have found in the hallway or lobby?
Likewise, what if you want to do a quick search of a range of different cuisines in the nearby area to see what you can get? Well, JUST EAT solves many of these problems. By entering your postcode on their website (they also have phone apps), they’ll show you online menus of many takeaway places local to you – from which you can easily order up a meal for you and your chums! Each venue is also rated by other users – with quality of food, delivery time and service all given scores out of six, and comments provided for many previous orders – meaning it’s pretty easy to pick the takeaway restaurant gems from the…less well received places.
I gave JUST EAT a go for dinner last night, trying out the whole process for the first time. The cheerful website couldn’t be simpler to get started with; I’d selected Indian as the cuisine type to narrow things down because me and my dining companion were in a curry kind of mood. With 58 (wow!) Indian restaurants in my local area, we opted for one of the highest rated places which had a overall ranking of 5.5 out of 6 and over 140 previous reviews – I’d say that makes it pretty popular amongst people in my area! (In case anyone is wondering, it was Hampstead Spice that we chose for our order. This post isn’t a review on them but, as an aside, I’d highly recommend them!)
Each eatery on JUST EAT lists their assorted menu sections – starters, drinks, mains, specialities and so on – to the left of the website, with the actual menu shown as one long list in the centre of the screen. Any variations – such as chicken or prawn for the korma dish – is shown within the menu itself. A few clicks on the + button to add things to our basket and we were set with our meal choices. Clicking on “order now” and choosing payment (card or cash on delivery is possible) and we then waited for our order to arrive. It couldn’t have been simpler.
JUST EAT certainly takes a lot of the hassle out of takeaway ordering. With the clearly laid out menus, it’s easy to see all the dishes that are available from any particular takeaway restaurant – the difficulty is making a choice of what to actually get! Sent directly to the restaurant in question, there’s also no chance that your order will somehow get misunderstood or taken down wrong. (Unless you accidentally order something wrong, like I did. On the plus side, I now know that I like chilli naan! Result.) And with both on-screen and email confirmation – detailing what you’ve just ordered – you’re sure that your order has been received and accepted; I remember some online food ordering back in the day where I was left wondering what would actually turn up. If anything.
London Budget tip Of course, if you order a fair bit of food, there’s probably more than one meal that you can cater for! As long as you don’t mind eating the same for two nights running…but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to manage the rest of my rather delicious curry tonight!
There’s other ways that JUST EAT can save you money too. They run a ‘Tweet of the Week’ competition: every week one of JUST EAT’s Twitter followers is awarded Tweet of the Week in their weekly newsletter – and JUST EAT rewards their participation with a £25 voucher! A free meal – fabulous!
Alternatively, some of the establishments on JUST EAT’s website offer 20% off orders Monday to Thursday – so even if you’re not the lucky winner of the voucher, you can still make savings on ordering a takeaway. There’s also additional discounts and offers available; head to JUST EAT’s website or like their Facebook page to be notified of these!
All in all, I’d highly recommend giving JUST EAT a go for your next takeaway order. It makes it so easy to find a takeaway place – which you can be pretty sure will be a good one, thanks to the review system – and order a tasty meal for you and your family or friends. After only a few mouse clicks, you can sit back and relax, knowing that a very tasty meal will be finding its way to you soon!
Check out JUST EAT to order food in your local area: www.just-eat.co.uk
Disclosure: My order was paid for by JUST EAT, although all opinions in this post are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.
