The document discusses finding a place to eat for around 8 euros in Coimbra, Portugal. It describes the challenges of always eating at the same places with limited restaurant information. It then introduces "À La Carte", a semantic search engine and database that helps users discover new restaurant options based on criteria like location, price, cuisine type, and reviews. The system provides structured restaurant data and is designed to "just work" for users searching for food.

1. where do you want to eat today?
João Magalhães
May 2010

2. Finding restaurants
The problem
we get easily
. Always eating in the same place bored
. No knowledge about neighboring restaurants
. No knowledge about prices not willing to
spend more than
. No knowledge about restaurant styles
8 eur
. No knowledge about restaurant menus
we love italian

3. The fails...

4. not really a
restaurant
good shot!
but a bit
expensive

5. Great! no results...
Coimbra?
yet another
recipe!

6. Great! no results again...
But we forgive you!

7. *
penne all arrabiata in coimbra for 8 euro Search
The new way to discover a place to eat
*

8. À La Carte
Basics
Search engine
+
Database
. Semantic based . Lots of restaurant information
. Human proof . Structured
. Just works . Open
Everything else is built on top of these simple concepts

9. À La Carte
The search engine
it just works!
. Naturally easy to use semantic search engine
. Focused in 5 main vectors:
1-­ Dish
2-­ Location
3-­ Price
4-­ Restaurant
5-­ Reputation this one is an
extra!
6-­ Meta data (tags)

10. À La Carte
Database
Lots of information about:
Restaurants Dishes
Location, description, menu Ingredients, nutrition info,
(dishes, deserts and wines), related restaurants, pictures,
reviews and comments, pictures, health information
chef opinion, etc
Metadata Crowd sourcing
RESTful API

11. À La Carte
Usage
Restaurant
Vs
. Restaurant comparison
Restaurant
. City restaurant tour
. Business intelligence backed clustering
recommendation engine
based on your
. Healthy food recommendations history
. Random restaurant selection
. Restaurant and dish comment
and reviewing system feeling lycky?

12. À La Carte
The ecosystem
5
1
Restaurant owner 4 The user finds the
publishes information restaurant, the
2 3 food and rates it
or even complements
the info!
The system processes
and publishes the information

13. À La Carte
The future
. Social experience
. Legacy system integration
. Loyalty driven system
. Restaurant tops, benchmarking.
More ideas to come !

14. À La Carte
The business model
. Fremium based:
Free basic services and paid premium services
. Free profile creation and menu streaming
. Paid statistics and business intelligence about audience
. Paid booking
. Paid advertising
Contextual
recommendations
The restaurants pay the bill