What We Do
ShiokGuide rates Singapore hawker food across dimensions that actually matter. Instead of collapsing an entire plate of chicken rice into a single star rating, we score each dish on its real characteristics: rice fragrance, chicken texture, chilli quality, sauce balance, and portion value.
We call this the ShiokScore. It is a number out of 100, computed from weighted dimensional ratings specific to each dish. Different dishes get different dimensions. You would not rate bak kut teh on "rice fragrance" any more than you would rate chicken rice on "broth clarity."
Why We Built This
Google Maps food reviews in Singapore are broken. A Teochew bak kut teh stall gets one star because someone expected Hokkien-style herbal soup. A hawker chicken rice gets "bland" because the reviewer does not know that Hainanese steamed chicken is supposed to be subtle. Ratings without context are noise.
We wanted a platform that educates first, rates second. If you understand the style of food you are eating before you review it, your rating becomes useful to everyone, not just people who share your preferences.
How the ShiokScore Works
Every ShiokScore is built from publicly available review data (Google reviews, Burpple, food blogs) run through dimensional sentiment analysis. We extract what reviewers actually say about specific aspects of the dish (the rice, the chilli, the texture) rather than treating every review as a single opinion.
The result is a score that tells you what a stall is good at and where it falls short. A stall might score 93 on chicken texture but 75 on rice fragrance. That is more useful than 4.2 stars.
We are starting with chicken rice (Singapore's most argued-about dish) and expanding to other hawker dishes as we refine the methodology.
Who We Are
ShiokGuide is a project by Brewtonic Inc, a Singapore-based digital company. Our team eats hawker food regularly, has strong opinions about chilli recipes, and believes Singapore's food culture deserves better tools than five-star ratings.
Marcus Tan
Editor-in-ChiefRuns the editorial side at ShiokGuide. Grew up eating at Tiong Bahru Market before it became a tourist destination. Has a standing argument with his mother about whether Tian Tian was better in the 90s.
Priya Menon
Food WriterCovers Malay, Indian, and Peranakan cuisine. Wrote her first restaurant review at 19 for a campus paper. Believes that good roti prata should not need curry sauce to taste like something.
Rachel Goh
Senior Food ResearcherFact-checks every stall listing, opening hour, and price on the site. Former food logistics coordinator. Will drive 40 minutes to verify that a stall has actually moved.
Mei Lin Ong
Food Photographer & ReviewerShoots all food photography for ShiokGuide. No filters, no styling, no borrowed plates. If the lighting in the hawker centre is bad, the photo looks like it. That is the point.
Wei Jian Lim
Data AnalystBuilds the ShiokScore methodology and maintains the rating model. Studied statistics, works in data. Keeps reminding the team that a sample size of three reviews is not a score.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or stall recommendations: [email protected]