A while back I caught a video by Jenna Marbles where she talked about some of the sins she committed during her Christmas break. One of the poor decisions she admitted to was order Chinese delivery to her home at odd hours of the day. Although what she did to herself probably wasn’t a great idea, Jenna Marbles did inspire me to see if there was something similar in my room (or rather online for my area).
I have to admit something: I’m horribly lazy when it comes to food. I have the impossible problem of never being able to decide what I want to eat most of the time. Part of this is because I really don’t cook much and generally don’t care for cooking on average (I can cook but have a limited range). As a result, I tend to abuse myself and end up resorting to fast food spots that pretty much are on just a single street (and usually just around the corner). I think part of this is attributed to the fact that I simply in the past had developed some horrible habits since my work day and locations ended up voiding my ability to find decent places late at night (which really do not exist where I live). In turn, I became a fast food junkie, something I have no real pride in but a fact that I have an impossible time escaping.
On top of that, I lived in some of the best zones in Tokyo for 5 1/2 years. The benefits of living in Tokyo are the plethora of excellent reasonably priced food options. I think I ended up getting horribly spoiled. Even the cheaper options like bento far exceeded the fast food options in America. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of living as a bachelor in Tokyo is that cooking ends up becoming extraordinarily expensive and inconvenient. It’s far easier and cheaper even to justify having dinner with your friends or just picking up cheap bento at the local convenient store rather than preparing anything complicated for yourself (outside of heating up a rice packet and tossing on curry).
In short, I’m somewhat fucked when it comes to food.
That said, I still am picky but hate the fact that most fast food options these days end up costing roughly $8-10 per meal. Factor in finding something exciting beyond tacos and hamburgers, the drive, the wait and the often misplaced order, it’s easy to start wanting to find better options.
So when I heard about the idea of delivery Chinese food, I decided to investigate a bit. After my mom’s stroke, I really don’t many opportunities to eat out at decent sit down style restaurants, much less finding spots that aren’t located along the main road near my home. Enter Eat 24.
Eat 24 is local restaurants that serve a fair number of US cities. Although the selection varies between cities, the thing I’ve come to appreciate is that I have more options available. Part of my criteria for finding a site like this was home delivery. While not every restaurant listed has this option, a fair number of them in my zone do. Another aspect is that I wanted to have a variety of listings. I started with Chinese but I managed to branch out a bit to Thai and (fake) Japanese. Thus far, the quality has varied but it does break up the monotony that I was facing.
The service itself is convenient since you can save your credit card information to a single spot and use them to handle most of the inconvenient aspects like tip. The people who arrive typically just deliver the food, although you might have to sign something depending on the place. Many of these restaurants have hours that go up until 9-9:30pm. For a late bloomer like myself, that aspect is pretty damn nifty.
A lot of places will require a minimum order fee and potentially a delivery fee. On average, I probably spend roughly $20 per order, which includes tip. But the way I look at my meals is this. Usually, these meals end up being good for at least 2 meals. The fact that I don’t have to go out of my way to drive and park make it all a huge plus in terms of experience.
Each spot offers their entire menu. Some items will have notes where you can read other people’s comments as well as favorites and dislikes. Unfortunately, because of the local nature of these spots, you won’t find a great deal of information, so the experience really ends up becoming a trial-and-error issue. I would say that the lack of descriptions and images take the site down a few notches and is a feature that they should eventually focus on. That said, the food itself thus far has been reasonable. Certainly, the quality ends up being a step higher than normal fast food chain restaurants.
The thing is that as a gamer, blogger, writer and technologists, I want to spend more time focused on those activities as opposed to waiting around in line. So if I wake up late or lack groceries in the refrigerator and just feel plain lazy, this site to me is a huge convenience boost. Obviously, I can’t do this all the time as it can get expensive. Yet I can’t deny the trouble it’s saved me.
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