🍱 Gacha Blind Box Lunch Picker
Can't decide what to eat? Let the gacha machine choose for you!
Result Chute
Add cuisines or exclude some, then pull the gacha!
🚫 Exclude Cuisines
➕ Custom Cuisine
What Is the Lunch Picker?
The Lunch Picker is a free gacha-style lunch randomizer that helps you decide what to eat when you're stuck. Instead of scrolling endlessly through menus or arguing with friends, you can exclude cuisines you don't feel like eating, then pull the gacha for a cuisine, and drill down to a random dish.
It's designed to be fast, simple and playful. No login required. Your preferences and custom lists are stored locally in your browser, so you can come back tomorrow and use it again in seconds.
How the Lunch Picker Works
The Lunch Picker uses a two-step decision flow to make lunch choices feel easier and more fun:
- Choose what to exclude. Remove cuisines you don't want today (for example: spicy food, noodles, rice, or anything you already had recently).
- Pull the gacha for a cuisine. The picker selects a cuisine category such as Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Indian, or Western.
- Drill down to a dish. Once a cuisine is selected, you can pick again within that cuisine to get a specific dish idea (for example: ramen, sushi, donburi, udon).
- Repick or lock it in. If it doesn't feel right, repick. If it feels right, lock the cuisine and repick only the dish, or save it as today's lunch.
This flow is powerful because it reduces decision fatigue: you only decide big categories first, then let the picker handle the smaller details.
Common Ways People Use a Lunch Randomizer
A lunch randomizer isn't only for solo lunch decisions. Here are a few popular ways people use it:
- Office lunch decisions. Let the team pick a cuisine first, then pick a dish to guide the restaurant choice.
- Couples & friends. Use it as a neutral "tie-breaker" when everyone says "anything" but nobody can decide.
- Meal variety. Exclude what you ate yesterday and discover something different today.
- Diet preferences. Remove cuisines or dish types that don't fit your diet, then let the picker do the rest.
- Quick lunch mode. If you only have 10 minutes, exclude anything that's usually slow and pick from faster meals.
- Food exploration. When you're bored of your usual options, treat it like a fun mini game to discover new dishes.
Why Use a Lunch Picker Instead of Scrolling Food Apps?
Food delivery apps are great, but they can make you overthink. A lunch picker helps you decide faster and makes the choice feel lighter.
| Scrolling Food Apps | Lunch Picker |
|---|---|
| Hundreds of options at once | One decision at a time (cuisine → dish) |
| Easy to overthink and keep scrolling | Fast suggestions to break indecision |
| Feels like work | Feels like a fun gacha mini game |
| You decide everything manually | You can exclude options, then let randomness help |
If you want a quick answer to "what should I eat for lunch?" without spending 15 minutes scrolling, a lunch picker is a surprisingly effective shortcut.
Is the Lunch Picker Truly Random?
The Lunch Picker uses JavaScript's built-in random number generator to pick from the remaining options after you apply exclusions. Each cuisine (and each dish within a cuisine) has an equal chance of being selected, unless you remove or customize your lists.
If you repick many times, you should see a roughly balanced spread of results over time. The goal isn't to be "perfectly random" in a scientific sense — it's to provide a fair and fun way to break decision fatigue.
Where Are My Preferences Stored?
Your exclusions and custom lists are stored in your own browser using localStorage. That means:
- No account or login required.
- Your lunch preferences stay saved on the same device and browser.
- No one else can see your personal list.
If you clear browser data or switch devices, the Lunch Picker resets to the default cuisines and dishes. If you keep a highly customized list, consider backing it up in your notes.
Lunch Picker Ideas and Presets
If you want faster picks, try using presets like these:
- Quick lunch: noodles, rice bowls, sandwiches, fast food.
- Comfort food: ramen, curry, fried rice, soup-based meals.
- Healthier: salads, grilled protein, soup, lighter rice bowls.
- Adventurous: cuisines you rarely eat, plus one new dish suggestion.
- No-repeat: exclude yesterday's cuisine and pick something new.
Is the Lunch Picker Free?
Yes. The Lunch Picker is free to use and supported by ads. There is no login, no paywall, and no credit card required for the standard features.
If you enjoy the tool, you can also share it with friends — it's one of those tiny daily-life utilities that becomes more fun when more people use it together.