App Watch: HappyCow

Oh, the relief. Vegetarians of the world, gather around and raise a toast—to the prospect of travelling and eating. Here’s an app that lets you go boldly into all parts of the world, even those that are famed for treating all moving creatures as fair meat. The HappyCow Vegetarian Restaurant Guide is simple to operate. You open it to find a neat graphic user interface with four buttons, each asking you to choose what are you looking for—strictly vegan restaurants, vegetarian restaurants, places with vegetarian options and vegetarian stores, all in your vicinity. Or, you could just tap on ‘see everything nearby’. The app can also be efficiently customised—you can choose another location and alter the search radius. This is especially useful for some pre-travel research (since there might, of course, be places that offer no options for vegetarians, in which you could either alter your travel plans or pack a stack of those theplas). The full version of the app (₹108) provides features such as the option to mark favourites, create trips, filter places based on whether they are open or not and add keywords.