Random Food Wheel for When Nobody Can Decide: how it works
This random food wheel holds 30 kinds of meal, from Pizza and Dumplings to Leftovers, and one spin picks one. It is a random food generator wheel you can change: narrow it with a chip such as Under 30 minutes, or switch to My list and type your own slices. This page cannot see the restaurants near you, so edit the wheel to match what you can get.
Spin, then narrow the wheel
The wheel opens with all 30 slices, and each has the same 1 in 30 chance. Press Spin and it stops on a kind of meal, not a recipe: Noodle soup can be ramen, pho or udon, and the full list under the tool says what every slice covers. Six chips cut the wheel down before you spin: Under 30 minutes, Easy to order in, Easy to make meat-free, Comfort food, On the lighter side and Easy on the budget. A chip leaves 8 to 16 slices, which is easier to read on a phone.
Help me decide what to eat: veto rounds for a group
A group rarely runs out of ideas. It runs out of ways to end the talk. Switch the mode to Elimination and every slice the wheel lands on is taken off. Use that as a veto round: spin, and anyone may spend their one veto on the result. A vetoed slice is gone and you spin again. The first result nobody vetoes is dinner. With four people the longest possible round is five spins.
Put your own food on the wheel
Switch from Dish types to My list and type one slice per line, up to 100 lines of 60 characters each. Good lists are short and real: the four places that deliver to your street, the dinners you have ingredients for this week, the contents of the freezer. Your list is saved in this browser, and Share copies a link that opens the same wheel on someone else's phone. Nothing you type is sent to us.
Tips
- Agree before the spin that the result stands. One veto each keeps it fair. Unlimited vetoes turn the wheel back into the argument.
- Cooking tonight? Tap Easy on the budget or Under 30 minutes first, so the wheel cannot land on something that needs a trip to the store.
- Treat the slice as a type, not an order. Tacos can mean a taco truck, a kit from the cupboard or last night's chicken in a tortilla.
- Keep a household wheel under My list with the ten dinners everyone will eat, and spin it on the night nobody wants to choose.
- If the wheel stops and your heart sinks, you have found out what you did not want. Take that slice off and spin again.
Questions and answers
What should I eat right now?
Spin once and take the slice as a direction. If it is late or you are tired, tap the Under 30 minutes chip first: its 13 slices are things like Quesadillas, Fried rice, Sandwiches and Leftovers, which need little shopping and little skill. This page cannot see what is open near you, so if the plan is to order, check that your usual places still deliver at this hour before you spin.
What should I get to eat if we are ordering in?
Tap Easy to order in. That leaves 13 slices most towns can deliver, such as Pizza, Sushi, Curry, Dumplings and Gyros and kebabs. Better still, switch to My list and type the places you really order from, so the wheel picks the restaurant and not only the kind of food. Four or five places is plenty.
Is the food wheel really random?
Yes. Every slice on the wheel has the same chance, whether that is 1 in 30 on the full wheel or 1 in 8 under On the lighter side, and the result is chosen in your browser. In normal mode each spin is separate, so Pizza can win twice in a row. The one fixed result is the slice shown when the page first loads.
Why does the wheel show kinds of meal and not exact dishes?
A wheel stops being readable after a few dozen slices, and an exact dish fails more often: you spin chicken tikka masala and have no chicken. A type such as Curry leaves room for what is in your kitchen or on your street. For one named dish with its cuisine and cooking time, use the random dinner generator in the related tools below.
What do the three modes do?
Normal leaves every slice on the wheel after each spin. Elimination removes the slice that wins, which suits veto rounds, or a week of dinners with no repeats: seven spins, seven different kinds of meal. Tally counts the wins for each slice, so a family can play until one slice has won twice.