A window to the world of food

For any foodie, conversations and gazing at photographs of food can go on for hours. And offering just this is the ‘Bengaluru Foodies Club’ (BFC), a page on Facebook which has over 20,000 members and is increasing by the day.

This common interest group which started a few years back, is a great way to network within the circle of food and beverage enthusiasts.

The group, which was started by Raunak Kundu, is managed by six administrators who try their best to keep off spammers and trolls. The group actively discourages copyright violations in the form of copy pasted text and images.

Suresh Hinduja, one of the administrators, says that the intention of the page was just like any other; to bring people with common interests together. “One of the attractions of the page is that there are consumers of restaurants and dining and restauranteurs here, and it is a great platform to connect.

The restauranteurs contact us to invite the members to their place. We pass this information to the group. If a restaurant is confident enough that they can give us good service, then it works well for him. But if the food isn’t upto the mark, then the place gets backlashed on the page. This is a nice symbiotic relationship, as this keeps the restaurants and chefs on track,” says Suresh.

The intention of this online page is to encourage conversations between two or more people about a recipe, its history or anything related to food. Another administrators of the group, Udhay Shankar N says that filtering posts can become a challenging task.

“Running an online food group was new for me. I love food and I do restaurant reviews. Sometimes, heated conversations between people form long threads and it can be hard to monitor everything. Any online space with a huge number of people will have arguments. Thus we cannot let people just post random links or information on the page,” says Udhay. He adds that this is why commercial posts and promotions are limited to once in three months on the page.

BFC is a great place to go to when you are wondering about where to head for lunch or dinner. “It’s great to read inputs and reviews from a group, where there are great connoisseurs of food.

One can ask for suggestions and people will offer a great list,” says Suhas Padil, a medical student. He checks the page for updates in the food scene. “The people here are more real. You can feel the experience when reading a review on a first-hand level,” he says.

People who actively post on the page, including members and administrators often meet up at restaurants, to celebrate their passion for food. Sudhir Kumar Padmanabhan, a regular on the page often attends the ‘BFC meets’ with his wife Pratibha.

“This is a great space to meet foodies apart from having good food. We also get offers and deals from the page. Also, this is a great place to know about the food in Bengaluru. People ask about the different cuisines available and it is a great learning experience,” says Sudhir.

 His wife Pratibha, adds, “Though I don’t visit the page often, it is fun to meet other foodies and connect to different restaurant owners. It helps to arrange for surprises too. After all, food is a common element which brings everyone together.”