Having the 2.O office away from the busy CBDs in the Metro has its pros and cons. While we sometimes don’t have to worry about traffic, having an office along Commonwealth Avenue meant food options are a bit scarce if you want to eat out. While we’re just a few minutes away from UP Town Center, getting there is another thing altogether. So, either we bring our own lunches or we rely on the usual delivery services of fast food restaurants.
After a while though, we wanted some variety. That’s when someone suggested we give GrabFood a try. Since the service launched in June 2018, GrabFood has grown to serve 10 cities in Metro Manila: Taguig, Makati, Ortigas, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Pasig, Lower & Upper QC, Manila, Pasay, and Marikina. (The service is also being beta-tested in Cebu City and Mandaue.) Thankfully, it covers our area and a lot of the good restaurants around us (including those in UP Town, Katipunan, and even Technohub).
It solved an important pain point for us: getting our favorite meals without having to leave the confines of our office and having to deal with temperamental traffic conditions in our area. Oh, and then having to deal with parking, too.
Choices are abundant, too. Around Metro Manila, 3,500 restaurants use GrabFood for their deliveries. (In Cebu, 500 restaurants use the service.) It covered a lot of our personal favorites—healthy or otherwise. So, no matter what you or your diet needs, it can deliver (pun unintended).
We’ve used it a number of times and haven’t had much trouble with the app or the riders who delivered our food. I’ve used it to deliver everything from a burrito, salad, chicken meal, to milk tea. The last one, we’ve learned, is one of the most popular orders from the service.
You do have to take note of peak times (around mealtimes, for obvious reasons), so you have to factor that in. It takes under an hour at most, but it could take more or less time depending how near or far the restaurants are from you and how quickly the restaurant can prepare your orders. Just like with GrabExpress, the app will update you of what’s happening each step of the way (from getting a rider, to ordering the food, to bringing the food to you).
And if you can’t get a rider to pick up your food for you, you can offer to tip extra to entice someone to pickup your order. We didn’t need to resort to that when we got food sent over. The riders were always courteous and pleasant, one even came back to return when he realized he gave us the wrong change.
You can get food delivered starting at 9 in the morning until 12 midnight but this is reliant on when the restaurants open or close.
What started out as a way to satisfy a craving (we really wanted burritos) has become a valid option for getting any kind of food with just the use of our smartphones. It’s a great example of convenience in the palm of our hands—and our stomachs are happier for it.
