Restaurant menu

Read a restaurant menu against your own day.

Photograph the menu at the table and Damson lists the dishes, shows what your meals today already carry, and reads any dish you tap against your own record.

Damson's Read a menu screen after photographing part of a restaurant menu. Seven lines look like dishes, among them BBQ chicken wings, chicken monastiraki, chicken skewer and lamb meatballs, each with its description underneath. A note says the photo stays on this phone and only the dish names are sent to be read.

Real screens from the app, some with demo data.

Damson is on the App Store.

Free to download, and the record is free to keep. No ads, and nothing to cancel later that you did not choose.

Download on the App Store

How do I read a restaurant menu in Damson?

Photograph the menu, or choose a photo of it you already took. You can also arrive from a Google Maps link, where Damson names the place and offers to photograph the menu once you are there.

The photo stays on your phone. The page is read on your phone too, and the only thing sent anywhere is the list of dish names. Damson then lists the dishes so you can look down one column instead of squinting at a laminated card.

Eating out with PCOS, now also called PMOS, is mostly a question of reading a menu somebody else wrote. Damson does not tell you what you may order. It puts your own day beside the menu, so the choice is yours with more of the picture in view.

A Damson sheet for a restaurant opened from a Google Maps link, The Real Greek Bankside. It lists what people usually order there, grilled halloumi, Greek salad, chicken souvlaki and yoghurt with honey, above a button that says photograph the menu.

What does your day so far mean?

Beside the dishes, Damson shows what the meals you have already logged today carry, in one line: your meals today carry about so many grams of protein and about so many grams of fibre, with your own numbers in it. It is a plain fact about your own day, not a target and not a verdict.

Tap a dish and Damson reads it against your own record, the same kind of read you get for a plate you photograph. There is no score, and no dish is called good or bad for PCOS.

Damson's Today screen with a saved plate of grilled meat with rice and vegetables, marked as carrying protein and fibre, and cards for symptoms and the cycle below it.

What is free, and what about calories?

Photographing the page, seeing the dish names and seeing your day so far are free. Having a dish read against your record is part of the full Damson, the subscription, which comes with a free trial and is priced in the App Store for your country.

Damson never calculates calories. Some restaurants print calories on their own menus, and where they do, the figure may appear as the restaurant printed it. Damson never works one out itself.

Questions about reading a menu

Can I scan a restaurant menu with a PCOS app?

Yes. In Damson, an iPhone app for PCOS, now also called PMOS, you photograph the menu or choose a photo of it. Damson lists the dishes, shows what your meals today already carry, and reads a dish you tap against your own record.

Is my menu photo uploaded?

No. The photo stays on your phone and the page is read there. Only the dish names are sent.

Does Damson show calories for restaurant dishes?

Damson never calculates calories itself. If a restaurant prints calories on its own menu, they may appear exactly as printed.

Is the menu read free?

Photographing the menu, seeing the dish names and seeing your day so far are free. Having a dish read against your own record is part of the full Damson, a subscription with a free trial.

Do I need a Google Maps link first?

No. You can photograph a menu, or choose a photo of one, wherever you are. Sharing the place from Google Maps is simply another way to arrive at the same step.