I’ve always wondered why they don’t do this in America.
I would surmise it’s one of the reasons trycaviar.com took off the way it did. It swept people from sites like grubhub that had lower quality restaurants with no pics.
In Japan it doesn’t even end with pictures—most restaurants have realistic physical models of their dishes!
Once upon a time I was posted to Tokyo to do some integration work. I had a great time working with Toshiba, and wandering around the city.
However a constant pain was the language (not a surprise) and my personal food tastes. I'll eat anything that isn't fish. Several days I'd just select random foods based on conversation with the staff, or pointing to lines on a menu because they looked fun. (That was quite fun, some days I'd get a starter, other days I'd get a desert, and I'd have no clue what I'd ordered!)
The only day I was absolutely certain I'd get great food was the day I found a place to eat that had pictures of the food. I thought I'd ordered a hamburger, but what actually arrived was a fish-cake in a bun. And that is when I learned that photo-based-menus were still not terribly useful.
If there had been a symbol of a "fish", a "cow", or a "chicken" that would have helped, but a photo can't tell you the difference between tomato-soup and chicken-soup, nor between a hamburger and a fish-cake!
I would surmise it’s one of the reasons trycaviar.com took off the way it did. It swept people from sites like grubhub that had lower quality restaurants with no pics.
In Japan it doesn’t even end with pictures—most restaurants have realistic physical models of their dishes!