Culinary blunder creates inspiration for new menu app

A mobile app that has changed the way international students view restaurant menus started with a disastrous date.

Mortified after ordering a salad topped with moldy cheese for his dining companion, recent University of Iowa graduate RuiHao Min came up with the idea for a visual menu translation app to help international students make more informed ordering decisions.

The app, “Blue Cheese,” gives users a re-sizable scanning box so they can take a photo of the menu items they don’t understand.

Though typical translation apps provide only literal definitions, Min has discovered there is a market for people who want information that goes beyond that.The user is then provided with an immediate English to Chinese translation for all of the food items scanned.

His app provides photos and flavor descriptions aimed to help those unfamiliar with the language on a menu make ordering decisions based on what they would and would not enjoy eating, rather than just the words they recognize.

“We’ve discovered it is both a language barrier and a cultural barrier,” Min says. “For example, ‘blue’ and ‘cheese’ are very simple words – we all know them – but you would never know exactly what blue cheese looks like or tastes like until you try it.”

The app was downloaded 70,000 times within three weeks of its launch in July. It was also named one of the “Best New Apps” on the iTunes app store over the summer and maintains a fast growth rate.

It all started when Min, a marketing and economics student from China, took a Taiwanese girl in his class out for a first date at an Italian restaurant during his freshmen year.

“We were both confused by items on the menu, and she asked for my suggestions,” Min says. “Even though I had no clue what to order either, I wanted to show I was culturally savvy, so I ordered her the only thing on the menu I could recognize.”

RuiHao Min. Photo by Lauren Katalinich, International Programs.

Drawn in by the name, Min suggested a romaine salad with blue cheese dressing. Unfortunately, his date was not expecting a salad topped with moldy, sharp-tasting cheese.

Needless to say, there was no second date. But not all was lost.

Embarrassed by his blunder, Min promised his friend he would do everything he could to prevent her from ordering blindly again.

Min teamed up with a group of developers and designers from various institutions to begin creating Blue Cheese last spring.

But he says their mobile app really took off when the group was selected to join 10 other student teams in the UI’s Venture School Summer Accelerator training program in June.

The intensive, 10-week program is designed to accelerate the start-up process while increasing the chance for success. The course pairs teams up with professional mentors and encourages students to talk to as many potential customers as possible to validate and pivot their business model.

With guidance from the program, the Blue Cheese team interviewed more than 100 potential users, which, they said, further validated the need for the application they’ve created.

Min says the support and guidance provided by the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center, and the UI has been central to their success.

“We would not have the kind of recognition and user base that we do without the entrepreneurial education we got here at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center,” Min says. “Their mentorship and professional entrepreneurial education have been huge assets for us to make smart decisions and design the best business strategy possible.”

As the team looks to improve the app, they hope to eventually expand it to add more languages, calorie counts, allergy information, and social media sharing options.

Min, now a UI graduate, says he’s also been in talks with several interested investors, though he’s still weighing what option is best for the company’s future.