I am an avid eater. And I like also to review the food I eat. Sometimes I am a bit snarky - but overall my worst experience get a 2 out of 5. I cannot even fathom how you could rate a restaurant ⅕ .
Ok - I could really think to get rated 1 out of 5:
- I am getting literally pulled over the table (purposely overcharged etc.).
- There are really extreme problems and the restaurant staff doesn’t even consider to change it or “help me out”.
- There is obvious discrimination. Not the one, that a great table is reserved and not occupied, while you sit next to the toilet - but that a waiter (...) is literally refusing you to serve, because you are _ _ _ _ _ (you fill up the blanks).
You get the rift.
But I read so many reviews of Zomato, where people are rating unreasonably bad. ⅕ because my food was late or didn’t came as advertised. ⅕ because it didn’t tasted XYZ. ⅕ because I ordered one dish - demanded an unreasonable change (I just read, that somebody wanted to eat Kung Pao chicken but not spicy...) and the shop could not (or forgot) to make it as ordered.
W.T.F.
I mean - sure, there are a lot of idiots in this world. But- Zomato has an obligation - because they are offering a service for the public (you could call it “public infrastructure”). It is private and revenue based - but as soon as you let the public review places, you cannot just leave it alone. You have to moderate.
Besides of reviewing each and every review, they can also create a better algorithm. This algorithm has to disregard all ⅕ reviews (and keep them invisible). Except that a particular problem pops up again and again - but probably the restaurant might have a serious issue with the police (in case of fraud) or health department (pest or any other hygiene related issues).
Also - very low scores should be only granted, of people have communicated with the restaurant and it hasn’t been resolved reasonably well.
One of the problem is also, that a 5 star scale is not sufficient. You can even not give fraction scores. It is not fair - nor realistic. And one overall score is also not great (the overall score should be automatically calculated out of subscores).
I also subject, that 5/5 points are too enthusiastically - and also wrong. I mean - I can think of a pop up restaurant, which makes fine dining dishes for street food prices. But a fine dining restaurant, which is reasonably expensive, gets most of the time 4+/5 - because it is expensive - and you can expect greatness.
And street food can be great, but rarely transcend towards the best culinary experience.
