Ukus: Restaurant Journal
Overview
Ukus is a restaurant discovery and review platform built solo from concept to deployment. Users can track dining experiences, explore a database of over 20,000 Canadian restaurants, follow other food enthusiasts, and generate shareable analytics summaries of their culinary history, all wrapped in a custom editorial design system. The project spans a web application, an Android mobile app, a content blog, an influencer discovery system, and a custom database enrichment pipeline.
Key Features
Restaurant discovery and filtering by city, cuisine, dietary requirements, and community badges, viewable on an interactive MapLibre map. A personal culinary profile with a restaurant log, cuisine passport, personal food map, curated lists, achievements, and a social following system. "Ukus Data" is a seven-slide, wrapped-style personal analytics summary with a computed food personality type, shareable via the native device share sheet or downloadable as images. A two-tier influencer directory with curated legacy profiles and verified community influencers. A native Android app built with Capacitor, plus a custom Node.js and Python database enrichment pipeline that geocodes 20k+ restaurants and normalises city and dietary data from OpenStreetMap.
Engineering Highlights
Diagnosed and fixed a complex React stale-closure bug in the filter system using useRef-based loading guards and explicit filter state objects. Implemented slide-by-slide image export using modern-screenshot, one of the few libraries capable of rendering OKLCH colour values to canvas. Built a geocoding pipeline with a three-tier address strategy, Nominatim rate limiting, and checkpoint/resume logic able to process thousands of records without data loss. Designed and implemented a branded design system using OKLCH colour tokens, DM Serif Display and Geist Mono typography, and a Canva brand guide.