South Korean credit card company Hyundai Card opts for a judge-by-numbers tack to the restaurant app with its newly minted MY MENU service.

Available for both iPhone and Android platforms, MY MENU is a free restaurant guide that was launched in mid-August.

The idea is simple and straightforward. MY MENU takes stock of the age, gender and profession of members swiping their Hyundai Card at restaurants throughout Seoul and Busan. 

According to a Hyundai Card representative, three months’ worth of recent data were compiled to formulate a research-oriented deal that takes a statistics-heavy approach to the standard restaurant guide app.

Users can click on a restaurant of choice and it dishes out ratios. For instance, one can find out what percentage of men or women visit a specific establishment, in addition to what percentages of customers of certain age groups or certain professions (i.e. office, government or private) tend to frequent a place and how often customers return to the same restaurant within a three-month window.

Restaurants are presented in order of popularity based on the ratio of Hyundai Card users that frequent each place within a specific area. In other words, for specific neighborhoods, the restaurant that had the highest percentage of Hyundai Card customers visit will be at the top of the list.

MY MENU also uses compiled credit card data to give users a list of 1,000 “recommended” hotspots in Seoul and Busan that can be viewed in various categories including type of cuisine.

According to a Hyundai Card representative, the app is updated on a monthly basis.

“Our goal with this app is not profit-based ― it is to provide a service for our customers,” the representative explained.

While the basic app is free to all users, only Hyundai Card members can access the “ZAGAT Restaurant Seoul 2012” guide that comes with MY MENU. 

“You need to log in to see Zagat,” the representative said.

The first Seoul edition of the prominent survey-based restaurant guide was launched in 2010 in conjunction with Hyundai Card. This is the second Seoul edition of Zagat and the first Seoul edition to be available as a mobile application. The printed edition of Zagat is available in both English and Korean.

MY MENU is available only in Korean.

By Jean Oh (oh_jean@heraldcorp.com)