How to rate a restaurant in Calgary, and what Mosey Gold means

Calgarians decide where to eat the same way everyone does: they ask around and read ratings. But many ratings online do not help much. A one-star review about parking, a five-star rave with no detail, or a long story that never mentions the food. A useful rating tells the next person what you ordered, how it was and whether they should go. Here is how to write one, and how Mosey uses ratings.

What makes a useful restaurant rating?

A useful rating answers the questions the next diner will have:

• What did you order? "The ginger beef" is more helpful than "the food".
• How was each dish? One dish can be great and another forgettable.
• What was the experience like? Wait, noise, service, value.
• Who would it suit? A date, a family, a quick lunch, a group.
• Would you go back, and what for?

Why rate individual dishes?

Because that is how people actually eat. In Calgary, you might go to one place only for its pho, another for its prime rib, a third for one pastry. A single rating for a whole restaurant hides which dish is worth the trip. Rating dish by dish tells the next person exactly what to order, and it is fairer to the kitchen: a restaurant should not be marked down because you ordered the one thing it does least well.

How do you rate a restaurant fairly?

1. Rate what you actually experienced, not what you heard.
2. Judge it for what it is. A Vietnamese sub shop and a steakhouse are doing different jobs.
3. Separate a bad night from a pattern.
4. Mention the price context.
5. Be specific about service problems rather than calling them "terrible".
6. Leave out anything personal about staff or other diners.

Should you post a rating after one visit?

Yes, as long as you say it was one visit. Most diners only go somewhere once before deciding, so an honest first impression is exactly what the next person needs. Update your rating if you go back and things have changed.

What should you do about a food safety concern?

A rating is not the right place for health and safety allegations you cannot back up. If you think you got sick or saw something unsafe, report it to Alberta Health Services, which inspects food businesses in Calgary and investigates complaints.

How does rating work on Mosey?

Mosey is built around rating the places you actually ate at, dish by dish. You rate the place and the individual dishes you ordered, add photos, and write a short note if you like. Because the ratings come from people who ate there, you can see where people actually went and what they ordered, not just which places spent the most on advertising. You can also follow friends whose taste you trust and see their ratings when you are choosing where to go.

What is Mosey Gold?

Mosey Gold is a mark a place earns when the people who ate there rate it highly. It comes from diners' ratings, not from what a business says about itself, and it cannot be bought. A restaurant cannot pay for it, advertise its way into it or keep it if diners stop rating it highly. That makes it a useful signal when you are choosing between unfamiliar places: it was earned at the table.

How is Mosey Gold different from an award or an ad?

Critics' lists and awards reflect the judgment of experts, often focused on new or ambitious restaurants. Paid placements reflect a marketing budget. Mosey Gold reflects what the people who eat at a place week after week think of it. That means it is as likely to appear on a family-run pho shop on International Avenue as on a downtown steakhouse.

How do ratings help small Calgary restaurants?

Many of Calgary's best places are small, family-run and invisible in paid search: the sub shop in Chinatown, the bakery in Bridgeland, the Afghan restaurant in the northeast. When diners rate the specific dishes they loved, those places get found by word of mouth, which is how most great restaurants became local favourites in the first place.

How do you rate a busy Stampede-week meal fairly?

During Stampede, restaurants in Calgary face their busiest ten days of the year. Many run special menus, take more bookings than usual and work with temporary staff. A meal that week may not reflect how a place does the rest of the year.

When rating:

• Say it was Stampede week, so readers understand the context.
• Judge the food and the welcome, which a good place keeps up even when it is packed.
• Be fair about the wait. Longer waits are normal that week; rudeness is not.
• Come back another time if you want to give the full picture.

What else can you do on Mosey?

Besides rating places and dishes, you can make and share lists, see where people actually ate, and follow friends. Where a food trail is offered, you can work through a route of places and stamp each one as you go, and at places that run a loyalty program, you can collect rewards for coming back.

How this works in the app: Rate places.

More guides to read next:

• A food day trip from Calgary to Canmore and Banff
• Inglewood food guide: eating and drinking in Calgary's oldest neighbourhood
• International Avenue in Calgary: a food guide to 17th Avenue SE

More in the Canadian food guides and the ranked lists of places.