Go BackHow Rating is Given
As a Penang food lover, I am mindful of the reputation that Penang food has received, and continue to seek the best Penang food experience. All reviews are based on "actual customer expectation" where I visit an eatery without informing them that they are being reviewed. I order and pay the full price for the food served. I do not visit the kitchen to view how the food is prepared. The evaluation is based on what is served to me, the general cleanliness of the eatery, the time taken to take my order and to deliver it, the customer service received, the taste, the aroma and the price.Each rating is presented with the date when the food was last evaluated, and it lasts until my next visit, during which the rating undergoes a review. Food is evaluated not only on taste, but also on aroma, speed of delivery, and price. Hawkers are not informed that they are being evaluated, and all hawker food are paid at full price.
Each type of food comes under its own category. Thus Hokkien Mee is a category while wanthan mee is a separate category. As such, different hawker food do not compete with one another. Only one stall per category can get the A+, with some food categories not getting it at all. All other categories may have more than one stall getting that rating.
The following is the rating given: A+: My favourite hawker food. The best of the best. Only one hawker stall of each category, ie one for Hokkien Mee, one for wanthan mee, etc. is entitled to this rating at any one time.
A: Excellent on all counts. Outstanding taste, service that is not unfriendly, delivery within not more than 20 minutes. More than one stall of each category may be given this and other ratings below this.
A-: Good in all but one. For example, if the meat is insufficiently tender.
The underlying expectation for hawkers to receive the A-, A and A+ ratings is that they must provide excellent delivery time of not more than 20 minutes, and also service that is not unfriendly. No matter how good the taste, a hawker is not given the A-, A or A+ ratings if delivery is beyond 20 minutes and service is unfriendly.
B+: Above average. Good, but held back by some factors such as slow delivery.
B: Average. Food that is passable, but nothing to shout about. Even if service is swift and friendly, it won't go above this rating if taste is only so so.
B-: Below Average. Taste is below expectation. Lacking in aroma.
C: Lousy. Stalls that have given me a regrettable experience will get this rating. Not only is the taste nothing to shout about, but also accompanied with slow and/or unfriendly service.
Reading the Food Rating
If you see a B-, it means the food is below average, not recommended by me, but I have no other issue with the stall. In other words, the hawker isn't unfriendly, and the service isn't unusually slow.B+ is given to food that is above average, but not outstanding. I may say that it is good, but I might not take the trouble to go all the way to a specific stall to eat B+ food.
B is for average fare. Nothing to shout about. No big deal. I might not try it again next time if there are other food at the coffee shop.
But if you see a C, that means not only is the food bad, the service is too. However, even if a food is good, I may still give it a C if the hawker is particularly unfriendly, to the point that I wouldn't relish ever trying the food again any time soon.
Anything with A, A- and A+ are the ones I truly enjoyed. The A+ is reserved for only one stall per category. To give a stall an A+, I must have visited it more than once, and have been satisfied with it continuously. As only one stall holds an A+ at any one time, I have to downgrade an existing A+ stall to give a new A+.
No stall can get an A+ from my first visit. I have to have at least visited it more than once, and been satisfied on both occasions in a row.
The A is given to stall that I can't find any fault at all. The taste is superb, the service is friendly and delivery within expectation. If everything seems excellent, but there's one minor fault, then it is moved to A-.
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About this website
Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.
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