Food Monsters: Catering to Ctg foodies

In absence of a consistent and reliable mainstream food critic culture, Facebook communities and pages have become the new staple for foodies to learn about new gastronomic delights across cities in Bangladesh.

While the food lovers of Dhaka have been running a number of such community and social media pages for years, foodies in the port city of Chattogram – a place with a number of delicacies – have been running one particular page to cater to the palate of its residents.

Like its name "Food Monsters", it has become monstrous with over 2.26 lakh active group members and a daily request of over 1.5 thousand to become new members of the group.

"This group aided me to find foods like the Bar-B-Q set meal of Boom Town Café," Salman Farsi, an active foodie in the group said, "I also let others know through this page that the fried rice of Mogol Kitchen is an absolute gem."                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

How did the journey start?

Food Monsters started its journey back in 2015. Mohammad Imran Chowdhury first started the page. Later Mohammad Raiyan and Brishty Islam joined him as the other admins.

Imran said that the thought of opening a social media-based food community came to his mind after he saw some similar pages about foods of different restaurants and different street foods in Dhaka in Facebook.

"People from Chattogram are famous for their hospitality and food culture. When you hear 'Chattogram wedding'- the thought of a massive gathering with a number of food items come to your mind. Besides, there is a vibrant restaurant and street food culture here in the port city. But unfortunately, because of lack of publicity in social media, very few people outside of Chattogram are aware of this."

Imran said, even many people in Chattagram are not aware of all the delicacies that the city has to offer. "This city is growing in an exponential fashion. Because of this expansion and increasing traffic clog, people from one part of the city barely travel to the other parts unless there is a need."

"That is why we wanted to create this community to let people know about our own food culture."

After deciding with some of his friends, Imran opened the page.

The big response

Raiyan said, when they started they did not think the community would witness such an exponential growth.

"People jumped to our page. They simply loved it."

Raiyan said that the reason Food Monsters has been able to garner huge success is that it gives the members a feeling of a community. "It is a closed group and all the members have a common trait that is, love for food."

He said that because of this large community, many tasty foods which most people in the city were not even aware of came into limelight. "Those were like hidden gems and the members of Food Monsters were like treasure hunters. They unearthed those."

Giving example, Raiyan said that there was this small shop named "Seven days" at Sholoshohor Gate-2 which sells one of the best kacchi biriyani in the city. "Very few people actually knew about the restaurant. After there was a review in our page, this shop became famous," said Raiyan.

Imran Chowdhury said that in the Food Monsters group, there are both food lovers and restaurant owners.

Because of the presence of a number of restaurant owners, the activities of the page are not confined within just food reviews, rather it has become a platform of interactions between the service providers and service seekers.

"If any consumer posts a negative review about any particular restaurant and the owner/s of the restaurant is in our group, usually the consumer gets a feedback. Because of this activity, many restaurants have gotten their feedback which led them to improve their services."

Imran said that the consumer posting also aids a lot of restaurants to add more items to their menu. "If a foodie in our group posts a picture of an item which gained popularity in Dhaka or other cities across the world, then the restaurant owners in Chattagram pick that and include that in their menu."

Ohidul Arafat, one of the owners of Avalon, one of the first upscale large lounge restaurant in Chattogram said that he has been actively following the page to learn about the criticism and suggestion that people make about Avalon.

"We have included items like Spicy Nachos and Duck Burger in our menu based on the suggestions received from the Food Monsters community."

Arafat said that there are few other food community pages in Facebook but no one comes close to Food Monsters. "They are maintaining it in a professional manner. Whenever there is a complaint raised against a restaurant, the admin of the page immediately tags the restaurant owner in that post. I think it is a brilliant initiative."

Not just food reviews 

Raiyan said that they just do not post food reviews and facilitate complains. They have taken some other initiatives too.

"Each month, we post details about a chef. In most of the cases, a brilliant chef in a small restaurant remains an unsung hero. We want to bring them into limelight."

Besides, Food Monsters has been arranging food festivals. On February 17 and 18 of this year, it arranged a big celebration in Bawa School field in Chattogram.

Imran Chowdhury said that they are also engaged in community activities. "During last Ramadan, with the aid from some members and restaurants, we took 135 street children to a grand iftar at a posh restaurant."

"Besides, we always post 'need for aid' or other social messages on our page to raise concern among a large community," he said.