“Saan tayo kakain?"
This is the eternal question that turns any group hangout into a mini-debate.
Good news: Hong Kong’s top dining app OpenRice just gave Filipinos one less dilemma to deal with.
On August 28, 2025, OpenRice officially launched in the Philippines with a lively kickoff at Japonesa in Makati City.
The app, a go-to for Hong Kong diners, arrives with the promise of simplifying how Filipinos discover restaurants, reserve tables, share honest reviews, and rack up rewards for doing what we already love: eating out.
OPENRICE: FROM HONG KONG TO MANILA
PEP.ph (Philippine Entertainment Portal) had a quick chat with the app's Managing Director, Jenna Sung, to learn more about the app.
When asked about the name, Jenna said it's the direct translation of the Cantonese phrase "kai fan."
She shared, "OpenRice in Chinese is 'kai fan,' which means bon appétit and it's, like, what you say before you start eating. So it's a direct translation of our Cantonese name.
"Yeah, so it's a bit like in Japan, you say 'Itadakimasu."
OpenRice actually started as a blog where food reviews from Hong Kong restaurants. The blog has grown into a wider and now serving as restaurant listings, menus, user reviews, reservation capabilities, and a rewards system in one place.
"It's started as a blog, so people are writing reviews, they're writing their thoughts, what they thought of the restaurant.
"And so we slowly turned it into restaurant details, making it searchable, and building a habit."
This isn’t OpenRice’s first venture into the Philippines.
In 2014, the same team launched OpenSnap, a mobile app that allowed users to discover popular restaurants through food photos uploaded by friends and other users.
Later, its functionality was absorbed into the OpenRice platform.
Now OpenRice has officially returned to the Philippines.
Asked why they chose to expand here, Jenna says the country’s booming food scene—and Filipinos’ love of food—made it a natural choice.
The team took their time launching because they needed to add many local restaurants and food spots to their database.
Jenna shared: "It was just last year when I reconnected with, like, one of our old partners, so we started to do it.
"We made a decision last year to come to the Philippines. So it took us a bit of time to, um, to update the restaurant information to verify them.
"So, yeah, we, we used less than a year to launch within the Philippines."
OPENRICE: DINE AND EARN REWARDS
The app boasts a huge database — about 19,000 restaurants in Metro Manila alone.
It also offers instant table booking, currently supported by over 150 partner restaurants.
Jenna confirmed: "Yes, and we're adding more by the day...
"These restaurants, they're mainly, like, mid-to-high range, so they're usually restaurants that need booking online.
"Not fast foods or other similar categories. It's mostly, like, mid-to-high range or fine dining."
Restaurant partners offering instant booking on the app include Jabroni’s, Saigon Corner, Antonio’s, Single Origin, Abe, Lorenzo’s Way, Poco Deli, Le Feu Steakhouse, Shi Lin, Café Adriatico, Mad Monkey Manila, and many more.
To attract more users, OpenRice introduced a rewards program in partnership with GoRewards.
Users earn points for every successful booking, which can be redeemed for GoRewards vouchers and items, from dining discounts to Cebu Pacific flights and more.
Jenna said, "We have the rewards. We have GoRewards.
"You have to spend 400 to 500 pesos to earn one point right? If you go to OpenRice starting next week, you book a table, but make sure you show up.
"If you get your first confirmed booking, every seat will be worth six points on us. And all subsequent points will be worth like 3 points per seat."
"If you like the restaurant, please leave a review. Every approved review will also get 8 points."
For users without GoRewards, OpenRice has its own rewards system: first-time bookings earn 5 points per seat (up to 8 seats), a first successful review earns 10 points, and every five reviews submitted earns 20 points.
Points can be redeemed for vouchers from Uniqlo, Jollibee, Pickup Coffee, and SM.
NEXT TRAVEL COMPANION
Beyond Hong Kong, OpenRice already operates in Macau, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and Singapore.
The app is also positioning itself as a travel companion.
Jenna told PEP, "It's hard to separate food and shopping, really hard to separate, but that's why we made the decision also last year."
Hong Kong and Japan are OpenRice’s top two markets for bookable restaurants, with Japan having the largest listing.
The platform also makes booking tables in Japan and other non?English?speaking countries much easier.
"We have multiple countries. We don't see a lot of apps doing that in the Philippines.
"It's not that common that, you know, you can claim to have 4,000 bookable restaurants in Hong Kong, 50,000 in Japan, so I think this is something that we're very proud of."
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