Following Galway's food scene through people, not adverts

The best way to follow Galway's food scene is to follow the places you like and a handful of people whose taste you trust. On Mosey, following a place means you hear when it announces events, offers or something new, and following people puts their ratings, photos, lists and food days into your feed. The result is a stream of recommendations from people who actually ate there, rather than whoever paid for an advert.

Why follow the food scene at all?

Galway is a small city that changes quickly. It has a large student population, a heavy summer season and a steady stream of people opening something new, so places open, move, change chef and close more often than in a bigger city. A recommendation from two years ago can be out of date.

The traditional ways of keeping up have weak spots. A place's own social media only reaches you if an algorithm decides to show it. Listings and newspapers cover the openings big enough to get press. Word of mouth is still the best source, but it depends on being in the right conversation.

Following the right accounts on Mosey closes most of that gap, because the signal comes from two sources you chose: the places themselves, and people who eat out the way you do.

What do I get from following a place?

When you follow a place on Mosey, it can let you know about the things a busy kitchen rarely manages to advertise:

• Events: a supper club, a tasting, a quiz night, a one-off collaboration
• Offers: a set menu for the quiet part of the week, or something you buy now and use within a window
• Food trails it is part of
• Where a food truck or market trader will be next, if it lists its appearances

This matters most for the small things that sell out in an afternoon. Free tastings and limited-seat nights tend to go in hours, so following the places you like is often the only way you hear about them at all.

A good rule: follow places you have actually eaten at and would go back to, plus a few you are curious about. Following everything turns the signal into noise.

Who is worth following?

People whose ratings you can learn from. Look for:

• Photos of the food, not the room. Someone who photographs every plate is telling you something useful.
• Specifics. "The chowder is the reason to come" is a recommendation. "Lovely spot" is not.
• A range. Someone who rates cafés, takeaways and the occasional special night out is more useful than someone who only reviews tasting menus.
• Honesty about bad meals. If everything gets five stars, the five stars mean nothing.
• Overlap with your taste. If a person loved three places you loved, their fourth recommendation is worth trying.

When you follow someone, their ratings, shared lists, Drops (photo posts covering a day of eating) and trail ratings appear in your feed. If their profile is private, only their followers see what they post.

How to turn your feed into places you actually go

A feed is only useful if it changes where you eat. A simple routine works:

1. Save as you scroll. When something looks good, save the place to a list with a note on what to order.
2. Check the dish, not just the score. Open the place and look at what people photographed. The dishes people keep rating are the ones the kitchen gets right.
3. Check how many people rated it. Four ratings might be four friends; forty is a pattern. Both can be worth a visit, but know which you are looking at.
4. Go, then rate it. Your rating, with a photo of the plate, is what keeps the feed honest for everyone else.

The Galway page is the other half of this: it shows what is rated across the city in one place, ranked by ratings rather than by anyone paying for position.

How does Mosey keep its food feed honest?

A feed built on recommendations is only worth reading if the recommendations are real. A few rules do most of the work:

• A rating comes from someone who ate there, with their own photographs of what they had.
• Places can reply to ratings but cannot delete them.
• Reported content is hidden while it is reviewed, and anything upheld as breaking the guidelines is removed and stops counting towards a place's score.
• Prominence cannot be bought. Places can advertise on Mosey, but the only thing allowed to make a place more prominent on its page or card is the Gold mark, which is earned from ratings.

You are also in control of your side. You can make your profile private, so only followers see your ratings, and you can block anyone; once blocked, neither of you sees the other's content.

Seasons change what you will see

Galway's food calendar follows its visitors. Summer and the festival season bring pop-ups, food trucks and one-off events, and a lot of them are short-lived. The quieter months are when places try new menus and run the set-menu offers that fill midweek tables.

It is worth checking your feed differently through the year: in summer for what is on this week, in winter for the offers and events that are easier to get into. Food trucks and market traders move around more than anyone, and there is a separate guide to following your favourite food trucks in Galway.

Contributing, not just following

The feed is only as good as the people in it. Every rating with a photo of the plate makes the Galway scene easier to follow for the next person, and every shared list is a ready-made recommendation for a friend arriving for the weekend.

If you are planning an evening rather than browsing, the date night guide for Galway puts the same approach to work.

Try it on Mosey

Follow five Galway places you would happily go back to and three people whose ratings you trust. Within a couple of weeks, your feed will be a better guide to the city than any listing.