My Zomato Gold Manila experience

I’ve been procrastinating the past few months, as I changed jobs and reacquainted myself with Manila. As part of my reacquainting, I’ve been going around and sampling the finest food Manila has to offer. Imagine my surprise then, when a Zomato Gold offer popped up while I was using my Zomato app to check out what new restaurant I should try today

I didn’t take notice of it at first, because I get swamped by ads daily – and I’m not really the impulse buyer type (masyado ako kuripot haha!); BUT you are now talking to the converted. I recently purchased a Zomato Gold 1-year membership (just 2 days ago, in fact) – and am fully convinced of its money saving potential! So, without further ado, let’s get into it….

Table of Contents

• What’s Zomato Gold, and how does it work?
• Who are the Zomato Gold partner restaurants?
• How much is the membership?
• My impression of Zomato Gold so far
• Any “tipid” tips?

What’s Zomato Gold, and how does it work?

Let me start by saying I am in no way, shape, or form affiliated with Zomato. This blog is purely based on my own impression of the Zomato Gold product – so please take my word with caution and research on your own as well!

Ok – so back to the original question, what’s Zomato Gold?

As far as I can tell, Zomato Gold seems to be a new product launched by Zomato in Manila earlier this year (2018) – although it originated from India. At first, it was envisioned to be an “elite” club and was meant to be invite only. They’ve obviously changed their mind, as it’s now open to EVERYONE (yay for us!)

How it works:

1. Become a member of Zomato Gold (there’s a 6-month membership vs 1-year membership option)
2. Whenever you dine or grab a drink at a Zomato Gold partner restaurant, you can avail of either 1+1 on food, or 2+2 on drinks

Easy peasy right? Well, I was initially VERY confused by the term 1+1 and 2+2. Essentially, if that partner restaurant has:

• 1+1 ON FOOD signage: if you order 2 dishes, the cheaper dish will be free of charge
• 2+2 on DRINKS signage: if you order 4 drinks (should be similar drinks), then 2 of the drinks will be free of charge

Note, one Zomato Gold member can only avail of ONE free dish / TWO free drinks. Take note, only maximum of TWO Zomato Golds can be availed only per table (it was unlimited before but Zomato Gold changed the rules because a lot of restaurants complained, super sad!)

Also – you HAVE to show your ZOMATO Gold visit ID before you start ordering, so that the partner restaurant can punch in the details accordingly when logging your order

NOTE: I’m not sure who exactly pays for the free food / free drinks, but I read online that it’s the partner restaurants who are shouldering all these freebies

 

Who are the Zomato Gold partner restaurants?

Sounds great right? Now the million dollar question is… who are the Zomato Gold partner restaurants? My initial fear was that these would all be new restaurants, or restaurants with low ratings… I mean, why else would you take part in this scheme unless you needed more customers? 

Surprisingly, that doesn’t seem to be the case! Click the link for the full list of Zomato Gold partner restaurants. But upon first glance, we’ve got some VERY popular restaurants AND expensive restaurants on the list, ranging from Bannaple (my comfort food favorite) to Nikkei (a super fancy Japanese restaurant that’s SUPER yummy, but also quite expensive)

Upon taking another look, you’ll notice that a huge chunk of the partner restaurants seem to be situated in Makati, BGC, and Quezon City. No surprise there, as the concentration of restaurants in Makati and BGC is HIGH; while Quezon City is HUGE

Personally, I’m looking forward to using my Zomato Gold at the following restaurants (I cheated and got this list from the Zomato Gold Eat List). After all, if everyone’s raving about it, it should be good right?

• Soru Izakaya (Quezon City)
• The Fat Seed Cafe + Roastery (UP Town Center)
• Mama Lou’s Italian Kitchen (UP Town Center)
• Nikkei (Podium, Makati)
• Charlie’s Grind and Grill (Kapitolyo)
• RUB Ribs (Tomas Morato, Makati)
• Nomi, Saboten, Providore (BGC)
• Da Gianni Cucina Italiana (Muntinlupa)

 

How much is a Zomato Gold membership?

You can avail of either: (early bird prices)

• 6-month membership: PHP 300
• 1-year membership: PHP 500

In my mind, getting the 1-year membership makes a lot more sense as it’s way cheaper – plus, it’s quite easy to recoup the PHP 500 membership fee. For example, by my second day with Zomato Gold, I had already saved PHP 655 (PHP 270 at Quarks and Quills – my first dinner with Zomato Gold; PHP 385 with The Fat Seed + Roastery – my second dinner with Zomato Gold). Having said that, there are rumors that Zomato plans to increase prices soon – so for the latest price list, please check out their website directly

On top of that, if you have a promo code, you can use that to get 20% off! So, in all – I only ended up spending PHP 400 for my Zomato Gold membership. What a steal!

As such, if you’re planning to purchase a Zomato Gold membership, please do use my promo code to get additional 20% off!

PROMO CODE: GERR8960

For full transparency, if someone uses my promo code to sign up, I get an additional month of membership free!

My impression of Zomato Gold so far

So far, I’m really enjoying my Zomato Gold membership, given that I’ve already recouped the cost of my membership fee by my 2nd night out. As such, every single meal I save after this will automatically be money saved – music to my kuripot ears!

Even more important, I appreciate how easy it is to actually avail of the Zomato Gold offer. I really hate promos where you show up at the restaurant and have to argue with the servers on whether the promo is valid / which dishes are actually part of the promotion… Here with Zomato Gold, all I have to do is…

• Go to the Zomato app, and choose a Gold partner restaurant
• Once I’ve decided on the restaurant, I click it
• Then I press the “Enjoy your Gold privilege” button
• Voila, I get a code, which I then simply need to share with the server who’s taking my order

It helps that all the servers at the partner restaurants are aware of Zomato Gold, how it works, and are clear to explain if there are dishes which are not included (e.g., dishes already under a special promotion of their own, holiday sets). Likewise, it’s easy to tell which dish will be free – essentially always the second most expensive dish!

To showcase some of the delicious food I’ve experienced with Zomato Gold so far, see my yummy photos from The Fat Seed + Roastery

Any additional tipid tricks?

Based on my experience so far, I think it’s more sulit if:

1. You already regularly frequent areas with a lot of Zomato Gold restaurants (e.g., Makati, BGC), so you don’t need to change your eating patterns
2. You usually go out with friends. Note that you can’t avail of Zomato Gold if you’re eating alone / ordering for take-away
3. You tend to order dishes/drinks of equivalent value. After all, it’s the SECOND most expensive dish that’s free. So if you bought a super expensive dish, then a super cheap dish, then lugi ka!

And that’s pretty much it – hope you enjoy your Zomato Gold experience as much as I did!