Talk Dim Sum vs Beef Selector
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
Beef Selector
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Beef Selector is the only tool available to beef consumers that enables analysis of the fat to lean percentages of a given cut or retail portion of beef. As intramuscular fat increases, the eating experience (and cost) increases. Beef is a natural product, and variation occurs within the same cuts of beef from the same side of beef. Beef Selector identifies value and helps you make an educated choice at the meat case, farmer’s market, or meat locker. For those wanting to minimize fat consumption while still enjoying beef, Beef Selector does that with a high degree of accuracy. By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Use: https://jdtoddllc.com/terms Privacy Policy : https://jdtoddllc.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Talk Dim Sum at every 3 days against Beef Selector's every 2 weeks. Beef Selector's advantage is iOS requirement (16 vs 26.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Talk Dim Sum sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Beef Selector sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Talk Dim Sum ships an update every 3 days, Beef Selector every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 5, 2026 and October 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Talk Dim Sum | Beef Selector |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (345 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 70.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 345 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 16 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 115 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Technicat, LLC | Semaphore Management LLC |
Bugs and 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
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- 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
Beef Selector
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Talk Dim Sum
- Talk Dim Sum Pro$0.99
Beef Selector
- Monthly$0.991 Month
Questions
Is Talk Dim Sum free?
Is Beef Selector free?
Do Talk Dim Sum or Beef Selector have ads?
Which is updated more often, Talk Dim Sum or Beef Selector?
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