When I began applying to colleges my senior year of high school, I found myself frequently wondering about the quality of food and what my meal plan would look like. Maybe my priorities were skewed, but now that I’m at UCLA, I’m super glad that we have access to such amazing food. However, I hadn’t even considered the wide range of cuisines and renowned restaurants around Los Angeles. Although I made it a goal to make the most of my geographic placement in college, I discovered after the first quarter that I failed to try very many new places.
This quarter, after making more of an effort to explore the diverse food scene in LA, I discovered Beli, an app where people track the restaurants they have been to and their personal rankings. Here’s how I feel about it so far!
Beli was released in the summer of 2021, but I first heard about it a mere few weeks ago. Popular food influencers on TikTok use this app, as well as many younger individuals who live in hubs of food like New York and Chicago. My roommate introduced me to the app, and we spent quite a bit of time in just one evening going back to every memorable place we had eaten and adding photos of the vibe and menus. I really liked that I could go back as far as I wanted to log foods that I had tried, as they brought back fond memories from vacations with family or trips with friends.
I also feel like when I eat, I often don’t think too much about the quality of the food I’m having. Being on Beli has helped me to be more critical about the food I eat and think about it in comparison with other places I’ve been. But, I’ve never been too picky, so my favorite aspect of Beli is the social part – you can see where friends are eating and save restaurants. I’ve been able to discover so many more popular spots due to my use of the app.
However, there could definitely be downsides to Beli – as a generation, we tend to already be glued to our phones constantly. Comparing what you have been eating can promote the pressure to always eat out, to always be trying glamorous places, and also spend a crazy amount of money on food.
At the end of the day, Beli is just an app. The true importance of trying new foods, in my opinion, is the social aspect – meeting new people while ordering food, laughing with friends, or even going out of your own comfort zone. Beli is helpful when finding places to eat, but it reminds me of how lucky I am to be somewhere with so much choice and so much to explore. More than a scoreboard, Beli symbolizes how grateful I should be to be able to track such a fun hobby.