System and method for associating user-entered consumable item description to an entry in a consumable item database. In one embodiment, formally structured restaurant menu item is matched to a large database of food items that has been constructed via crowd-sourcing. A novel, practical, and scalable machine learning solution architecture, consisting of two major steps is utilized. First a query generation approach is applied, based on a Markov Decision Process algorithm, to reduce the time complexity of searching for matching candidates. That is then followed by a re-ranking step, using deep learning techniques, to ensure matching quality goals are met.