Rashmi Rekha Das, OP
Looking for a taste of the best local cuisine? Want to try an exotic dish? Through their website, Arupa Ray Joshi, Rudra Samantray and Arindam Choudhury, a team of foodies, guide you to some of the interesting eateries in town.
Bhubaneswar has a vibrant food scene for all those who simply love to eat and enjoy. With an array of options at hand, foodies could well be confused on where to go and what to eat. Good food is not the only parameter, as a pleasant eating out experience needs good service and ambiance. This is where the food review website www.bellthebelly.com comes to the rescue. The website created by three food enthusiasts, Arupa Ray Joshi, Rudra Samantray and Arindam Choudhury helps people, including travelers and locals,with information on a whole range of restaurants in town and the kind of cuisines they offer. On the website, users can see photos and reviews of the various dishes tried by the three foodies as well as the ratings given by them.
“Do you want to focus on local favorites? Are you a non-vegetarian or a vegan? Are you looking for not just the right restaurant, but to try its best dish? The website lets you search for the dining experience you are looking for. Whether you are a serious foodie looking for a new dining experience or just want to eat out in a good ambience, our website is there to help you find the right place,” say the trio, who happen to be childhood friends. Arindam is a software engineer while Rudra is a businessman and Arupa is the owner of a monthly tabloid.
“Bhubaneswar has a wide range of restaurants. Most people, visitors in particular, don’t have much of an idea about the best restaurants and eateries. A restaurant may be well-known but if you order a dish that it is not good at making, you will regret it. This has happened with us many times. That is how we came up with the idea of helping foodies figure out the best restaurants in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri,” they say.
“It is our love and passion for food that brought us together for this venture. Our professions are different. But we manage to find time out of our busy schedule to visit restaurants in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri every weekend and try out the best dishes available there. We let them know about our venture by pasting a sticker of ‘Bell the Belly’ on the door or at the billing counter before returning. Why do we do that? It is to reveal that the food joint has been visited and reviewed by our team. Later, the three of us post an overall review taking into account the taste, ambience and value for money. We also share our review on the Facebook page of Bell the Belly.”
To date, the Bell the Belly team has covered 100 restaurants, mostly in Bhubaneswar. Rudra says, “There are many more restaurants to be covered. We are planning to visit restaurants in Berhampore and Balasore in the coming days.”
Arupa recounts a memorable incident: “A New Delhi-based journalist with a leading English-language daily had come to the city on work. While surfing the Net, he came across our website. He rang me up and asked me about the best restaurants in the state capital. During his 15-day stay, almost every day he called me to ask about the best eateries for local cuisines. While returning, he thanked me for the help we provided through our website.”
Arindam remembers another incident: “On a weekend, we planned to visit Moti Mahal in Cuttack to try out Punjabi dishes. Before we even entered the hotel, the owner welcomed us at the gate saying, ‘Welcome Bell the Belly team.’ We were astonished.How did he know about our visit and how did he identify us, we wondered.We were told that he often browses the Internet and thus found our website and became a regular visitor. He had read our blogs. So when he saw us coming to his restaurant on the CCTV, he came rushing to the gate to welcome us. We felt really good to find that our website was being followed and liked.”
The restaurant owner later invited the Bell the Belly team to the Punjabi food festival hosted by him to try out the newly introduced menu.
Of course, it is not necessary that all the restaurants liked by the team will be liked by others.Arindam says, “I had recommended a restaurant near Sainik School to a close friend of mine who wanted to take his family out for dinner. We had visited the restaurant a month before and had a good experience. He went there but did not like it at all. He was really annoyed with me. I later came to know that the earlier chef had left the restaurant by the time he visited it. So such things do happen.”
Arupa says that most restaurants welcomed their feedback. “We meet the owners and chefs of the restaurants, give them feedback and write reviews later. They have always been open to criticism. Once we visited a friend’s restaurant. We did not like the food offered there and gave it an average rank. He felt hurt. But later he understood that we had given the rank taking several parameters like service, ambience and food quality into consideration.”
Looking to the future, Arupa says, “We plan to upgrade the website and come up with a mobile app very soon. The app will help foodies discover the good items served at different restaurants. We have decided to spread our presence to other parts of the state gradually.”
Arindam explains that people, especially youngsters, these days want to go out for meals on weekends and chill out after a stressful week. The Bell the Belly website helps them find the best places to dine out. “But people sometimes have the wrong notion about us. Usually, restaurants hire organisations to write a review and rate them on the basis of food available there. Such organisations could give ten out of ten to restaurants as they seek to promote these restaurants. But we are not for promoting any restaurant or hotel. It’s a passion, not a career or business for us. We are all busy with our lives. But we make sure to spare some time for our passion for good food.”
