Ok, I have no idea how I'll be going about this so I'll just type as I figure things out...

Food I eat is rated primarily by the following criteria, in no particular order:
- Taste (of course)
- Authenticity*
- Consistency*
- Cost to serving ratio*
- Price I would pay to eat the dish again*
- How filling?

Secondary ratings that may affect my rating include:
- Atmosphere
- Condiments on the table or lack thereof*
- Menu item availability*
- Waiter/waitress ability
- Side/appetizers *

My main objective is really the food. I only tend to include the weight of the secondary ratings if an aspect is particularly notable, whether good or bad. Also, the secondary ratings are weighted together as one and held against the individual primary criteria. The secondary rating system holds the lightest impact of all criteria when coming to a final rating of 0-10.

Now what are those *s for up there beside the rated categories? That means that those categories have a more descript meaning than what is initially written. Side notes, in other words. Here they are described in detail with examples where possible.

- Authenticity
A lot of people think that food is food and it's good or it's bad. I used to be that way myself, weighing more on the bad side. It wasn't till I moved away that I found myself exploring foods from different ethnic backgrounds. Authenticity of food comes into play when I'm eating ethnic cuisine - duh. But it's not that simple. Say you go to a Japanese restaurant. You expect the taste to have characteristics of real Japanese food. But what if you go to a Japanese restaurant like Hapi House? Sure some argue that their food rocks anyway but everyone knows and says in the back of their heads, "But it doesn't taste Japanese...". The same goes with Americanized Chinese fast food. They don't eat that crap in China! But again, that's not to say that the food isn't good from a particular restaurant. So if I were to rate a Mr. Chau's using only the taste and authenticity ratings, it would get a big fat 0 on authenticity but maybe a 6 rating on the taste. But that doesn't make it a 50/50 split of a final rating of 3. Remember it's all weighted differently. Based on those 2 criteria alone I'd probably still give it a 5.5 rating. Now if I throw in the "how filling" rating it would be pretty damn high because Chau knows how to load you up, boosting the final rating... but that's for another section.

Of course the weight of authenticity applies even less to hybrid or contemporary food. Like an Italian hamburger for instance. An originally German food utilizing Italian spices and olive oil. How do I rate these kinds of dishes for authenticity? I don't. Being that they have no single ethnic theme to them they simply get a default rating of 5 on the scale. Easy enough eh?

- Consistency
People that know me think I'm a little strange in this area but I think that consistency is a huge part of the overall rating. And by all means the consistency rating is actually the single hardest rating to get out of my entire system. WTH, why? Well simply because I have to eat the dish to be rated my magic number of 3 times on different non-patterned occasions. This is to even out the chances of getting the same cooks to cook my food and possibly figure out that different ingredients are used at different times, by different cooks. Imagine Randy, Paula, and Simon(the 3 occasions). They rate the would-be stars(dishes) at different performance days(occasions), singing different songs(ingredients). If all these things come together and the performances are consistent, America loves them. And its that darn Simon that usually evens out the judging panel's average yield. In my case, Simon is that third occasion that evens out my consistency rating. Hitting the pavement makes it hard.

- Cost to serving ratio
This one is simple. I like good food yet like it at a budget just like everyone else. A fancy pants French restaurant that gives you a quarter sized portion of lobster for 70 bucks gets a 0. Simple, I told ya.

- Price I would pay to eat the dish again
This is the favored, most heavily weighted rating when I eat on the cheap. Here I explain the rounded price I actually paid and the price I would still buy that dish at if prices were raised. For example, I like the Carl's Jr. dollar spicy chicken sandwich - so much that I've established a rating based MSRP, if you will, price of $1.65. I would pay up to 1.65 for that damn sandwich, 65 cents more. Now why the hell would I include something as controversial and opinion based as this? For the human aspect! No good rating system is established by a robot and statistics just aren't feasible when it comes to food.

More Details
Now onto the secondary rating descriptions. These help establish, even more so, the human aspect of my system and also note severe shortcomings or pleasant surprises.

- Condiments on the table or lack thereof
I tend to use this secondary rating a lot when I eat in Mexican restaurants. Some people just don't get it. How can you have a Mexican restaurant and not have a bottle of Tapatio' sitting on the table? OOooh, salt and pepper, wow... You wouldn't need those if you had TAPATIO'!!! The blow is softened if I ask and they don't hesitate to hand me that sacred bottle. But some places have the nerve to not stock it at all! An example like this is a major ding on the secondary scale. Where's my damn sauce?!

- Menu item availability
Again I tend to use this in Mexican restaurants. Chorizo(yes that's the correct spelling). I love that stuff, yet some places refuse to make a super burrito out of it stating it's only for the chorizo con huevos. Ding! Then there are the places that don't carry chorizo at all. DING!!! DING!!! That's a foul for the planned party in my mouth and a neh-gah-tee-voh!

- Side/appetizers
Whether it be a Chinese place with a free Chinese salad bar and cookie or a Mexican restaurant with a free tortilla chip and salsa bar... notice the pattern? This is for those freebies given to you at a restaurant in goodwill because they want you to think that you're just awesome in their eyes. Hmmm... cold hot and sour soup isn't awesome. Stale tortilla chips are definitely not awesome. Build me up, Buttercup, but dammit, DON'T BREAK MY HEART!!! No one, with the exception of myself because I actually did it, goes to a Chili's and tells the waitress, "An Awesome Blossom, please. But hold on the awesome". You order that advertised Awesome Blossom and expect it to be completely and utterly AWESOME! Sorry for that rant but it's just that important. And yes, I realize the Awesome Blossom isn't a freebie.

Conclusion
When all these powers finally combine you don't get Captain Planet, no. You get a damn good, down to earth rating system by an arguably normal guy like me. You won't find the people with sections in the paper describing their system in such great detail. It's just too hard and brain frying like this post. I've been on this for 2 HOURS! It physically hurts! But when all is said and done and weighted in my head, you get my very reliable rating like so:
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Actual price paid: ~$7
Price I'd pay: $10 (only if its good, negatives are possible!)
Cumulative rating: 6.5 out of 10 (it's very rare that I do quarter points)

Insert nifty final thought here.
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Doesn't seem like an even trade in effort to results huh? What can I say? I love's me some food. And finally NO I DON'T RATE MY MOM'S FOOD. That's taboo. But I'm more than happy to rate your mom's food. Just remember to repeat 3 times for full effect.