a system and method are described for analyzing a menu . in one embodiment , a mobile device can obtain a digital version of a restaurant menu . a list of food criteria can be stored on the mobile device and tailored to a particular user of the mobile device . the restaurant menu can then be filtered using the stored list of food criteria to display a reduced version of the restaurant menu with items that conflict with the food criteria removed . in another embodiment , the digital version of the menu can be translated . for example , a destination language can be based on a language setting in the mobile device . a source language can either be entered by the user , determined automatically by comparing words in the menu itself against dictionaries in different languages , or by using geographic location of the restaurant .