9th July 2013 was a special day for the foodie community in Singapore, Burpple will be launching its latest burp to the web Social Food Guide at Chye Seng Huat Hardware. Although the party was supposed to starting officially at 7pm, there was already a crowd at the door by the time Malcolm and I reached at 6.55pm!

But we were just in time for ice cream! Their jovial ice cream uncle drove in his mobile ice cream stall in style with a very naughty signboard that parents are sure to disapprove.

After gobbling down our ice cream biscuits, Malcolm Sunny and I indulged in some legitimate camwhoring against Burpple backdrop.

The good people at Burpple brought in Hokkien Mee from 4 famous locations within Singapore and masked their true identity behind H1 to H4. So sneaky!

To vote for our favourite hokkien mee, we were supposed to pick up a piece of pasta and drop them into the respective plastic cups.

The event also offered a platform for new food contenders to obtain feedbacks before they launch to the market. Their roast pork belly is seriously not bad but the rice was cold and tasted rather ordinary. They may also want to consider having some gravy over the rice.

We loved the street hawker alfresco dining concept. Fuji water bottles conveniently placed at all tables to quench our thirst.

Alternatively, guests can also choose to hide inside the cool air-conditioned interior and wash their meals down with ice cold beer or the amazing Chye Seng Huat Hardware (CSHH) coffee. It’s beer for me & Malcolm!

Thrilled to grab a quick chat and photo with Elisha Ong, one of Burpple’s co-founders!

After everyone had their fill, it was time for things to get a little more serious. Elisha shared with the crowd how Burpple grew from a humble set up to become one of the Top 10 Start Ups in Asia while his co-founder Dixon Chan dishes out Burpple’s new go to web strategy.

Burpple Burps To The Web

After its amazing success as a mobile app, Burpple is all set to conquer the culinary web space in Singapore with its new address – www.burpple.com/sg

This new Social Food Guide combines stunning visuals and positive dish reviews to help you discover great restaurants, and find out what the best dishes are – from real people and genuine experiences. It redefines the way people discover and share good food.

What Can You Do With Burpple On The Web?

1. Search And Browse Interesting Places To Eat

Search and browse from over 700,000 dishes and 6,000 restaurants, cafes and hawkers in Singapore. You can decide where to go when you are hungry, from a curated list of categories, including – neighborhoods, purpose, occasion and cuisine.

2. Beautiful Place Pages – Enhance Your Dining Experiences

Burpple’s beautiful place pages allow you to explore amazing restaurants and cafes, complete with all the essential information such as address, map directions, opening hours and prices. With large cover photos featuring the interior, get a feel of the place’s ambience at a glance. Browse through the social menu to decide what to order. If you like what you see, simply save the place with the new Wishlist feature, and curate a list for future food adventures.

3. Social Menus – Helps You Decide What To Eat Instantly

Social Menus add a visual and social fabric to the existing traditional, text-based menus we have in print. Find out the top dishes in a restaurant, the number of recommendations, how the food looks, their prices and most importantly, positive feedback from people who love them. This is much more powerful than traditional marketing or chef recommendation badges. Online Social Menus are like Dish Billboard Charts for restaurants and cafes, and helps to answer the grand question, “What should I eat today”?

“For the first time, this is truly word-of-mouth at scale. We believe this will set the benchmark for recommendation engines in the years to come. We are excited by the potential of Social Menus, and we believe Burpple is uniquely positioned to do this.” – Mr Dixon Chan, Burpple President and Co-founder

4. Real And Like-minded Community

From restaurant pages, you can discover potential makan buddies from the community of people who have shared their experiences. Burpple revolves around real people sharing genuine food experiences in a visual way. By connecting these experiences, users can now better interact with each other and form serendipitous, meaningful relationships within a like-minded community.

“Always a feast for my eyes, Burpple’s drool-worthy photos have been a great way for me to find new places to dine, and new dishes to try! I find it an easy way to collate and share my food moments with friends and food lovers elsewhere too.” – Ms Eleanor Tay, Burpple Tastemaker

Is Burpple The Next-generation Food Guide For Asia?

With over half a million rich photo reviews posted in less than a year, Burpple has five times the number of reviews of the incumbent food network in Singapore. This makes Burpple the richest food network in Singapore. Over the past few months, Burpple has also garnered more than 200,000 photo reviews in Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, and expects to launch its Social Food Guide in these countries in the third quarter of 2013.

“With geo-located photos, it is the ultimate way to ensure validity of reviews. This gives a higher quality, more accurate and genuine opinions coming from users, making Burpple more trusted than current restaurant review sites, which is prone to spam, negative and fake reviews. The way Burpple is designed allows the community to grow as a positive word-of-mouth food recommendation site, which is unique and one of a kind.” – Mr Elisha Ong, Burpple CEO and Co-founder

What does Burpple have in place for F&B Merchants & Foodie Community? 

1. Burpple Merchants

With 76% of Burpple users aged 18-34 years, 63% ladies, and 68% being PMEBs, this forms the perfect demographic for restaurant merchants to reach out to. Burpple is excited to introduce 20 premium merchants, and is focusing on providing high quality implementation and service support.

Burpple currently have premium merchant launch partners including Wild Honey, & Made by Bruno Mernard, Laurent Bernard Chocolatier, Lawry’s The Prime Ribs, Skyve Wine Bistro, L’Entrecote, Morganfield’s, Fukuichi Japanese Dining, Wrap & Roll, Sabio By The Sea, Platters, Munch SaladSmith and Pasta Brava. They are looking at opening up to more merchants in the coming months.

Interested merchants can contact them at www.burpple.com/merchants.

2. Burpple Tastemakers

Burpple Tastemakers are people who are passionate about food, and simply love sharing their food experiences with others. With a growing community in Singapore and all around the world, Burpple is creating a platform for people to find and follow the most relevant and influential foodies. As a Burpple tastemaker, you will influence what is considered to be worthwhile, changing the way the community discovers and decides where to eat, and what dishes to try.

Passionate tastemaker can sign up at www.burpple.com/tastemakers.

Congratulations to Elisha,Dixon & The Burpple Team

It was a wonderful and well executed event. Malcolm and myself enjoyed ourselves tremendously. I am proud to be a Singaporean knowing that we do have inspiring entrepreneurs among us. Furthermore, having the opportunity to interact and have a picture taken with Dr Vivian Balakrishnan was priceless!

A BIG thank to Burpple Team for the kind invitation and the lovely goodie bag! We look forward to experience the brand new Burpple Social Food Guide on 15th July 2013!

You may also like to check out my posts on other delicious food places here