The visit

What we do on a visit

We go, we order, and we eat. Then we write down the price, how the menu describes the dish, what we thought, and a few photos when we can.

The judgment

How a grade works

Every plate gets a letter grade, a Lowcountry Score, and a Value judgment. The letter grade is our overall call on the plate. It isn't a conversion of the other two. Here's what each letter means.

A+
You gotta try this dish. It's nearly perfect.
A
An outstanding dish. Highly recommended. We only have minor observations.
A-
Really delicious, but we noticed some areas for improvement.
B
A really solid dish, with some minor complaints.
C
They missed on some fairly significant parts of the dish. We'd order something else next time.
D
Major mistakes. This isn't a quality example of shrimp and grits, and we wonder why it's on the menu.
F
We'd go somewhere else next time.

The Lowcountry Score

Traditional, not better

The Lowcountry Score is its own number, from 0 to 100 in steps of ten, and it tells us how traditional the dish is. It isn't a quality grade, and it doesn't change the letter grade or any other judgment. The review tells you why. Non-traditional meats, seasonings, or additions, like curry or bleu cheese, take a dish out of the running for Standard Bearer: Traditional. So do non-traditional preparations or presentations. A dish could score a 90 and still be left out of that category, and it may still be one of our favorites.

Value

The sixth taste

Value is our own judgment of what arrived for what it cost. It stands alone from the letter grade, though quality often has a lot to do with it. We write down the price at the time of the visit, so value ages faster than anything else on the page.

Exceptional
More plate than the price asks.
Good
A fair trade.
Fair
Fine, though we wanted a bit more.
Poor
The price outran the plate.

The Record

How the Record is ordered

We list plates by grade. When grades match, the Lowcountry Score breaks the tie, because our top goal is to find the best overall example of what defines shrimp and grits. If you can only have shrimp and grits one time, this is the one you should have. That plate is a traditional one, and we'll find it. After that, the most recent visit comes first, because chefs and menus change. When a restaurant's latest visit grades lower than an earlier one, its previous high shows beneath the grade.

Earlier visits

Older reviews

Shrimp and grits is a difficult dish to prepare consistently, so a plate can land differently from one visit to the next. We don't go back to older reviews and try to apply new scoring systems. Each one keeps the grade we gave it at the time. When we return to a restaurant, the new visit goes next to the old one. It doesn't replace it.