I had an hour to get food for our first office party in over 2 years — here's how I did it like a pro

As an avid karaoke fan, I used to be the organiser of our weekly office karaoke sessions every Friday evening.

Naturally, that inclination to organise gatherings among my colleagues meant that I would usually be the one to help plan for birthday celebrations or year-end holiday parties.

However, Covid-19 came and the peals of laughter that used to reverberate throughout our rather small office were no more. To quote a song from Les Miserables - "empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends will meet no more".

Okay, it's a lot less morbid than Les Miserables but you get the picture.

With the recent lifting of workplace restrictions, though, my colleagues are not only back but we can try to catch up on all the missed gatherings over the last two years.

We decided to do it over lunch so everyone can take a well-deserved break and recharge before tackling the latter half of the workday.

As I've been very dependent on food delivery apps during the pandemic, I decided to try out foodpanda's subscription service — known as pandapro — for the first time.

I got the monthly service for $7.99 - cheaper than other food delivery services' subscriptions, by the way. I later learned that if I signed up for the annual plan I could have gotten a 50 per cent discount as the monthly fee will work out to only $3.99!

The monthly plan provides dine-in offers that you can use when you eat out at a restaurant — which is perfect since this single Pringle is ready to mingle.

Other perks include unlimited free deliveries (selected restaurants), up to 35 per cent off selected restaurants (unlimited uses) and an extra 5 per cent off all pick-up orders (unlimited uses).

You'll also have two vouchers for 10 per cent off pandamart each month. Value!

A multiverse of perks

The fun really starts when you start browsing the app. Frankly, it was as if I had stepped into a multiverse. For new pandapro members, like myself, the app conveniently lists restaurants that offer perks for pandapro users — whether it was in the form of discounts or free deliveries.

Alternatively, you can use the filter function to immediately search for restaurants that offer pandapro perks.

It didn't take me long before I got used to this crazy world of discounts - identified very clearly with the discount tags - and I got down to the challenging task of finding a suitable place to order from.

We had to take a couple of factors into consideration while ordering. Firstly, we had Muslim colleagues in the office, secondly, I can't consume beef, and thirdly, the food had to be able to keep for a while in case anyone wanted second helpings for dinner or to 'dabao'.

It may sound like a tall order (and we all know how tricky it is to cater for a large group) but foodpanda offers over 16,000 merchant partners and on the contrary, we were spoilt for choice. To a certain extent, I was paralysed with choice and it took a good 20 minutes to decide as there were so many other discounts and offers available.

Oh, and we couldn't afford for the food to be late if we wanted to have a decent lunch as a bunch of us had work appointments after.

Time was ticking so we eventually settled on a pizza party from Verve Pizza that we had ordered from previously that also serves good har cheong gai (prawn paste chicken). I know, it sounds uninspired and basic as pandapro members have many other exciting options, but hey, it does the job of feeding a large group of hungry people.

And plus point, with pandapro, we enjoyed free delivery. It would have been $4.29 otherwise! Just imagine, two orders and your pandapro subscription would have paid for itself.

We placed the order at 12.33pm and the app estimated that the food would arrive sometime between 1.10pm and 1.20pm. It was promising but honestly, I had my doubts about the one-hour delivery time because we had ordered quite a bit of food and it takes some time to make four pizzas.

Also, with the pizza place located at Gillman Barracks, it wasn't exactly far but it wasn't a stone's throw away either. Despite my doubts, our order made it right on time and it was certainly impressive.

While we only enjoyed free delivery for this order, I spotted several other enticing offers while scrolling through foodpanda's selection.

And frankly, I've already started planning my next big meal to maximise my savings.

No more FOMO

If you're having FOMO, there's still time to sign up and you'll be just in time for their pandapro week-long deals that run from May 23 to 29 where subscribers can enjoy even greater discounts and upsized perks such as:

• Up to 35 per cent off food delivery (with minimum order of $15) from Milksha, Carl's Jr., 4 Fingers, Boost Juice and more!
• 30 to 50 per cent discount off total bill when you dine-in at crowd favourites like Yummo Chow, South Union Park, The Grumpy Bear and more

Some cool, participating restaurants that we spotted include The Soup Spoon Union, Flash Coffee, Delifrance and Gong Cha - so start looking at their menus for meal inspos.

Want that cherry on top (30 per cent off full menu) when you dine in at Yum Cha (Chinatown and Changi outlets) during pandapro week? Redeem a free crispy fish skin with this secret code: "Got crispy pandapro discounts?".

And that's how you do it like a pro.

This article is brought to you in partnership with foodpanda.

bryanlim@asiaone.com