About DiverseDishes

DiverseDishes is an IMDB-style discovery platform that highlights minority-owned restaurants, cultural heritage stories, and signature dishes across Texas. Instead of browsing food only by ratings, users can explore how each place and dish connects to identity, migration, tradition, and community life.

Our goal is to promote civic engagement by making underrepresented food communities more visible and accessible. By sharing cultural background, historical context, and neighborhood impact, the site encourages users to support local businesses that preserve heritage and strengthen community connections.

DiverseDishes is designed for students, local residents, tourists, educators, and curious food lovers who want more than a menu. Whether users are researching culture, planning where to eat, or learning about Texas communities, the platform offers meaningful stories and practical discovery in one place.

Team Members

Amanda Le photo

Amanda Le

Bio:
Hi, I'm Amanda, and am from Houston TX. I'm a sophomore CS major, and in my free time I like to run and watch movies.

Major responsibilities:

  • Create the Cultural Heritage model and instance pages.
  • Create the Dishes model and instance pages.
  • Implement shared group-wide CSS styling.

Commits: 0

Issues: 0

Unit Tests: 0

Yisu Li photo

Yisu Li

Bio:
Hi! I'm Yisu Li, and I'm from China. I'm a junior majoring in Computer Science. In my spare time, I love playing table tennis and badminton.

Major responsibilities:

  • Build and maintain the About page.
  • Deploy and monitor the production website.

Commits: 0

Issues: 0

Unit Tests: 0

Manushri Malkapurapu photo

Manushri Malkapurapu

Bio:
Hi, I'm Manu from Dallas, TX. I'm a sophomore CSB and Finance major, and love working out, watching movies, and going to concerts!

Major responsibilities:

  • Create the Restaurant model page and instance pages.

Commits: 0

Issues: 0

Unit Tests: 0

David Robertson photo

David Robertson

Bio:
Hello, I'm David. I am a junior CS major from Houston, Texas. I enjoy martial arts, hiking, and snowboarding.

Major responsibilities:

  • Create the Splash page.

Commits: 0

Issues: 0

Unit Tests: 0

Project Stats

Total commits

0

Total issues

0

Total unit tests

0

Data Sources and Scraping Methods

Source Type Link How We Scraped
Yelp API REST API Yelp Queried business search endpoints with cuisine and Texas city filters, then parsed JSON fields into restaurant attributes.
OpenTable API REST API OpenTable Requested restaurant listings by city and cuisine category, normalized response fields, and merged with our restaurant model.
TasteAtlas HTML pages TasteAtlas Collected dish and cultural context from page content and references, then structured key facts for the heritage and dishes models.

Tools and Usage

Required Tools

  • GitLab Issues:
    Tracked customer stories, tasks, and bug tickets.
  • Postman:
    Designed and tested RESTful API endpoints and sample responses.
  • Discord:
    Coordinated team communication, sprint updates, and blockers.
  • Bootstrap 5:
    Built responsive layouts and reusable UI components.
  • AWS:
    Hosted and served the static website with HTTPS support.
  • Namecheap:
    Configured and managed a custom domain for a pretty URL.
  • Grammarly:
    Drafted and polished the technical report.

Other Tools

  • GitLab REST API:
    Dynamically fetched commits and issues for About page statistics.
  • Node.js Test Runner:
    Ran JavaScript unit tests and validated stats logic.
  • Python HTTP Server:
    Served local static pages for module loading and live front-end testing.
  • ChatGPT:
    Used for debugging help, conceptual clarification, code improvement, and evaluating alternative implementation approaches.
  • Google Maps:
    Embedded map locations for model instances.
  • YouTube:
    Embedded videos to provide visual storytelling.
  • Messages:
    Used for quick coordination, updates, and day-to-day communication.

Project Links