Online meal order platform a hot dish

Online shoppers can now sate their appetites by ordering hot dishes from restaurants to be ready at a table nearby or to enjoy at work or home.

A new online cuisine ordering service, taodiandian, which was launched on Dec 20, allows users to place online orders for meals that will be ready and waiting at restaurants or to order takeout for delivery to a place and time of their convenience.

"It will promote the online shopping service," said Wang Yulei, the manager in charge of the online cuisine ordering department under taobao.com, a major online shopping service provider in China.

In a six-month pilot period from June, the new service served meals to about 3 million users.

The highest daily orders made by phone apps exceeded 30,000, according to statistics released by the taodiandian managing office.

Most of the users were students and young working people.

Zhang Yajun, 26, a resident of Shijiazhuang, is a big fan of the service. She said the lingering smog made her hesitant of walking somewhere for dinner.

She used to order hamburgers and pizza, but she preferred to have hot Chinese dishes.