Usually, there is nothing that unites people more than food.
Or in this case, divides people.
On Wednesday (Dec 11), food travel guide Taste Atlas, released their 2024 rankings for the 100 Best Food Cities in the World, with Singapore coming in at #22.
According to the list, Singapore’s must-try dishes include char kway teow, Hainanese chicken rice, laksa, and chili crab.
However, a particular country is missing from the list: our neighbour to the north, Malaysia.
Yikes! Is the guide rage-baiting?
Naturally, Malaysians were incensed over the snub with many calling the travel guide out for the exclusion.
“To not even include Malaysia is a sin!” read a comment while another described the snub as “illegal”
One even wrote, “Whatever Singapore has, we do it better”.
Well, we didn’t come up with the results.
Other citizens from various Asian countries also criticised the authenticity of the list asking how New York City (#12) beat out a food capital like Bangkok (#67), which also didn’t make the cut.
Only Mumbai (#5) and Osaka (#10) made it into the top 10.
This isn’t the first time the controversial ranking system have been criticised by netizens prompting Taste Atlas to defend its methodology back in 2022.
According to the Croatian-based project, they verify the authenticity of user ratings via AI from a database that contains more than 15,000 dishes.
The list has been so divisive that even embassies have reached out the to travel guide.
At least Malaysia came in at #37 for a Best Cuisine list, while Singapore was #89.
Hey, you win some, you lose some, right?