Comparison

OpenRice vs Talk Dim Sum

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

OpenRice

Discover and book tables at your favorite restaurants across Asia. Order takeaway, purchase discounted vouchers, and pay for meals seamlessly. Earn loyalty points and credits while enjoying exclusive offers and discounts.

Highlights
  • Restaurant table booking
  • Takeaway pre-ordering
  • Discounted voucher purchases
  • Cashless meal payments
  • Loyalty point earning and redemption
  • Job listings in F&B industry
  • Advance queuing
Features
Read full description

OpenRice: Your complete restaurant guide, Table booking, Takeaway, Voucher, Payment and Loyalty platform in Asia. Search, book and earn Rice Dollars from your favourite restaurants! Simply show up to your booking and earn the equivalent to $1 per attended seat (T&C’s apply)! Burn Rice Dollars on Takeaway, Vouchers, Booking Prepaid Menus and OpenRice Pay! Table Booking (HK, Macau, Taiwan, Thailand) - Book, attend and earn Rice Dollars! - Book with prepaid special menus and enjoy special offers. - Earn multiple membership points (Asia Miles, Lee Gardens Club, Hang Seng Cash Dollars, LUBUDS). Takeaway (HK) - Whether you’re at home or office, pre-order to save time! - Enjoy multiple discounts from restaurants, credit cards and partners. Vouchers (HK) - Buy discounted vouchers before meals! OpenRice Pay (HK) - Pay for meals seamlessly with cashless payment. - Earn and burn credits while enjoy restaurant discounts. Jobs (HK) - Apply to any jobs in the F&B industry. - Quick apply through online CV and Whatsapp employers directly! Queuing (HK) - Save time and queue in advance on the way to restaurants. - Get notified when your table is nearly ready! Many more functions coming soon, stay tuned! Enquiry: mobile@openrice.com

About

Talk Dim Sum

Navigate Chinese and Chinese-adjacent cuisine with confidence. Hear pronunciations in Cantonese or Mandarin, search dishes in English or Chinese, and discover over 500 restaurants. Practice your speaking with speech-to-text and AI dish recognition.

Highlights
  • Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciation
  • English and Chinese search
  • Save favorite dishes
  • AI camera dish recognition
  • Speech-to-text pronunciation practice
  • Over 500 US restaurants listed
Read full description

Love dim sum, but don't know what to order or how to order? Bring this app, find what you like, and tap the speaker icon to hear the dish pronounced in Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) using iOS text-to-speech. I made this app after visiting Hong Kong and trying to crash course learn Cantonese in the food courts. The early focus was just on dim sum and Cantonese text-to-speech and my favorite restaurants, but has since expanded (based on user tips and requests and my own interests) to more broadly cover Chinese and Chinese-adjacent food (over five hundred dishes) and include features such as Mandarin (traditional and simplified), search (English and Chinese), saving favorites, AI camera recognition of dishes, speech-to-text pronunciation practice, basic phrases, and over five hundred restaurants in the US (sorry, I gave up on trying to list every restaurant in the world, it's just not feasible). Tips: If the voice is stuck in Cantonese or Mandarin even after switching the tabs in the Practice screen, go to the Settings app, select Accessibility then Spoken Content and check the Chinese voice. If it's not one of the Siri voices, try selecting Siri in Mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. If you don't hear the Chinese speech 1) check the mute switch on your iPhone and make sure it isn't on. 2) text-to-speech for a particular voice sometimes seems to require an internet connect, at least on initial use (same with speech-to-text, the microphone practice button). 2) sometimes a device will have trouble accessing the text-to-speech voice (it's the Hong Kong Chinese voice used for Accessibility in Settings), so try turning your device off and on. Tapping the speaker icon plays back the Chinese pronunciation at half speed to help you learn. Tap the microphone icon to bring up more options, including adjusting the playback speed, switching between Cantonese and Mandarin, and practicing speaking (the speed and language settings are also in Settings). Aside from the default speed, the speech may sound not quite natural because the app does not play back recorded speech but instead uses iOS text-to-speech functionality, which utters one character (i.e. one syllable) at a time, which may not match how an entire compound word or phrase is normally pronounced (you can hear this effect when using Siri). The home screen shows categories of dishes. Tap each category to see the dishes. Or tap on the Search button at the top left (some vocabulary items like "takeout" are not in categories but available in via search). Talk Dim Sum is developed with: The dim sum icon from Stock Image Folio on Iconfinder.com. The technicat logo designed by Dakota Snow. Restaurant link icons from Simple Icons. Photos from many dim sum excursions. Regional map images from Wikipedia (Creative Commons License from Wikimedia). Swift open source packages: AlertToast, ImagePickerView, LinksKit, Qgrid, SQLite.swift, SwiftUIPager, and SwiftyJSON.

Screenshots

OpenRice4 screens
Talk Dim Sum4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Talk Dim Sum at 4.8 against OpenRice's 4.1. Talk Dim Sum also leads on review sentiment (70% vs 29%) and ads (none vs shown). OpenRice's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Talk Dim Sum sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. OpenRice asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Talk Dim Sum holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 87 and 345 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 29% of OpenRice's written reviews are positive against 70% of Talk Dim Sum's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

OpenRice ships an update fortnightly, Talk Dim Sum every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
OpenRice versus Talk Dim Sum: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOpenRiceTalk Dim Sum
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.1 (87 ratings)4.8 (345 ratings) — better
Positive reviews28.8% of reviews70.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings87345 — better
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 3 days — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size242 MB115 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperOpenRice.comTechnicat, LLC

Customer experience

OpenRice

All ratings87 ratings
Positive77.0%
Neutral5.7%
Negative17.2%
Written reviews212 reviews
Positive28.8%
Neutral10.8%
Negative60.4%

Talk Dim Sum

All ratings345 ratings
Positive95.9%
Neutral2.9%
Negative1.2%
Written reviews27 reviews
Positive70.4%
Neutral7.4%
Negative22.2%

Bugs and requests

OpenRice

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Talk Dim Sum

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • App freezes when tapping on food pictures
  • Speech function has no sound
  • Cantonese voice pronunciations are incorrect
  • Wrong word usage and pronunciation (Mandarin vs. Cantonese)
  • Audio recordings are laughably bad
Show 2 more
  • All dishes displayed in Mandarin instead of Cantonese
  • Sound not working, even when highlighted

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add Boba names and rituals
  • Add conversations for ordering
  • Add more Chinese food items
  • Add various teas

In-app purchases

None

OpenRice

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Talk Dim Sum

One-time1
  • Talk Dim Sum Pro$0.99

Questions

Is OpenRice free?
OpenRice is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Talk Dim Sum free?
Talk Dim Sum is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, OpenRice or Talk Dim Sum?
Talk Dim Sum is rated higher. OpenRice averages 4.1 out of 5 from 87 ratings, while Talk Dim Sum averages 4.8 from 345 ratings.
Do OpenRice or Talk Dim Sum have ads?
OpenRice shows ads; Talk Dim Sum does not.
Which is updated more often, OpenRice or Talk Dim Sum?
OpenRice ships an update fortnightly, and Talk Dim Sum every 3 days. Most recently, OpenRice was updated on October 14, 2026 and Talk Dim Sum on October 17, 2026.

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