Makan Match: 8 Questions, 15 Places to Eat in Singapore

The eight questions

Jelak or light. Air-conditioned or outdoor is fine. Trying to impress someone or it is chill. Buffet or no. Below $50 or above $50. Eating healthy or NOPE. Just the two of you or a whole group. Traditional or trendy.

That is the whole thing. Eight taps, no typing, no account needed to run it. It reads as a joke format but the eight axes are the ones that actually decide a Singapore dinner, which is why there is no cuisine question, cuisine is downstream of the other eight.

If you want the other quiz, Makan Pets is the personality one that hatches you a pet. Makan Match is the one that answers where to eat tonight.

How the 15 results are picked

The pool is about 1,000 real Singapore places, a curated head of roughly 57 plus a wider index of around 945 more.

Every place carries a score of 0, 1 or 2 on each of the eight axes, and your answers add up against them. Three rules shape what you actually see:

One brand, one card. Outlets of the same brand and sister brands under one group collapse into a single result, so you never get a list of five of the same chain.

The pool is shuffled before scoring. Eight yes-or-no questions can only produce so many distinct scores, so across a thousand places hundreds tie at the top. Without a shuffle you would get the identical fifteen every single run. Retake it and you genuinely get new places.

Desserts get demoted. Bubble tea, soya, goreng pisang and dessert kiosks are pushed down the list. A dinner-decider that answers "Mr Bean" has failed, even when the traits technically agree.

What is actually bookable right now

Most of the thousand are places you go and queue at like anyone else. A small number are Eventful Tables partners you can book straight from the result: KANTIN at Jewel Changi Airport, Family Mookata at Ang Mo Kio, Yishun and Jurong West, Family Hakata at Ang Mo Kio, and Epicurean Fusion in Kampong Glam.

Partners get a small scoring nudge, and if fewer than two land naturally they can be slotted in at position 3 and position 8. Never at number one, and never unless they are within three points of the day's top score, which is at most one and a half answers away from what you tapped. A pushed but wrong suggestion costs more trust than it earns bookings.

That list is short and we are not pretending otherwise. It grows as merchants sign. Everything else in the index is there because it is worth eating at, not because someone paid.

More on the wider app in what Eventful Tables is.

FAQs

What is Makan Match?

Makan Match is a free tool on Eventful Tables that asks eight yes-or-no questions about what you feel like eating and returns 15 Singapore places that fit. It is at eventful-sg.com/makan-match and needs no account to run.

How many restaurants does Makan Match choose from?

About 1,000 real Singapore places: a curated index of roughly 57 plus a wider list of around 945 more. Only one result per brand appears, so chains do not fill the list.

Do I get the same results every time?

No. The pool is shuffled before scoring, because eight yes-or-no questions leave hundreds of places tied at the top. Retaking the quiz with the same answers gives you different places.

Are the results paid placements?

No. Eventful Tables partners get a small scoring nudge and can be slotted in at positions 3 and 8, but only when they score within three points of the top result, and never at number one. Nothing else in the index is paid.

Which restaurants can I book through Makan Match?

Currently KANTIN at Jewel Changi Airport, Family Mookata at Ang Mo Kio, Yishun and Jurong West, Family Hakata at Ang Mo Kio, and Epicurean Fusion in Kampong Glam. The rest of the index is walk-in.