An e-menu that helps order food and find a date

TOUCH SCREEN TREAT: A company has installed e-menus in joints across Israel, France & South Africa.

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Keywords: Conceptics, Restaurant

New Delhi: Eating food is the last thing that you'd expect your computer to help you with. But electronic menus are already here and will soon come to a restaurant near you.

A company called Conceptic has installed electronic menus in joints across Israel, France and South Africa, something that it claims is being loved by the people.

"This menu allows me as a customer to see the different dishes, choose them and order them. It let’s people change the menu language. It's enriching my experience in the restaurant," Conceptic CEO Chitayat says.

That's not entirely optimistic hard sell, if you ask his patrons.

Natalie Edry, the owner of Frame Restaurant in Tel Aviv, says her sales hot up 11 per cent after she bought the system.

"Curious adults specifically ask for seats that have these monitors. Frisky children keep themselves occupied browsing the system. Some guys order stuff just for the kick of trying it out," Natalie says.

Of course, the system also lets you play games and chat online with fellow diners, even angle for a date — something the guys didn't mind at all.

"It's a nice experience,” a diner at Frame Restaurant Eran Hershko says.

Conceptic's now tinkering with its servers to make the service even more user friendly.

“We currently have an ongoing pilot using rich Internet applications. This solution will be used by customers where they can come to the restaurant with their laptop or PDA or whatever, and they have connect to our system and use exactly the same features as the stationary screens,” Software Development Head at Conceptic Lior Chen Tov says.

Similar technology in the US and Japan, lets waiters take orders on cell phones and PDAs. Microsoft operates a much larger system in hotels and casinos. Of course, no one's digitized the smiles and small talk that human waiters provide.