Rate My Take­away is odd­ly addic­tive. A jol­ly York­shire­man pulls up a fold­away camp­site table on the street, orders food from a take­away, eats it, and tells you about it. It shouldn’t be that inter­est­ing. It shouldn’t work. And yet, it def­i­nite­ly does, to the point where you can eas­i­ly find your­self devour­ing hours of the con­tent and reach­ing for your near­est take­away menu in the process.

To those who haven’t heard, Rate My Take­away is a pop­u­lar YouTube chan­nel, run by Dan­ny Malin, from Leeds who has become an unlike­ly inter­net sen­sa­tion because of his hon­est, fun­ny, authen­tic video content.

It works for so many rea­sons. The con­cept is total­ly sim­ple but also entire­ly unique. The fact that Dan­ny has his own lit­tle set up to enjoy his take­away food restau­rant-style is charm­ing and fun­ny, as is Dan­ny himself.

You can’t help but like him. His infec­tious enthu­si­asm for the food he eats is whol­ly enter­tain­ing, and what’s so love­ly about it is that he makes a dif­fer­ence to the busi­ness­es that he reviews pos­i­tive­ly. Places that serve Dan­ny go viral for their in-house spe­cial­ties and see cus­tomers pour­ing through their doors.

Dan­ny dri­ves up and down the coun­try, try­ing any­thing and every­thing along­side his silent cam­era­man, who, Dan­ny quips, nev­er gets even a morsel of the food! Danny’s tried food from every kind of take­away out­let there is. From Indi­an street food in Leeds, Turkey Twiz­zlers in Wales, and a Scot­tish clas­sic — a deep friend munch box, so huge it has to be seen to be believed!

Dan­ny is a man who knows what he likes. Com­fort­ing, cozy food, gen­er­ous por­tions, home recipes, any­thing that’s got a bit of his­to­ry, and food made with love. He loves get­ting tips from peo­ple who adore their local take­away and con­tin­u­ous­ly checks out pop­u­lar stu­dent haunts in the places he vis­its — he lis­tens to the locals and sniffs out the best of the take­away scene wher­ev­er he goes.

It’s fair to say that the world is becom­ing pret­ty endeared to Dan­ny Malin. Watch­ing him hap­pi­ly enjoy mas­sive piles of mouth­wa­ter­ing food is strange­ly cathar­tic. It’s no-frills, no pre­ten­tious­ness, it isn’t try­ing to be any­thing oth­er than what it is — and that’s why it works so well.

Dan­ny lives and works in Leeds. You can find him at Mal­colm Michaels’ Qual­i­ty Butch­ers, a place he loves so much he’s vowed nev­er to leave even if he reach­es the dizzy­ing heights of fame and fortune.

The Rate My Take­away chan­nel now has 333,000 sub­scribers, and his cheery, hap­py-go-lucky atti­tude means he is bound to con­tin­ue to attract more.

In an (almost) post-Covid world, small busi­ness­es need all the help they can get. Danny’s videos are help­ing get local take­aways back in the spot­light, get­ting peo­ple excit­ed about eat­ing their food, and ulti­mate­ly help­ing to boost their busi­ness — and that’s some­thing pret­ty impres­sive about him too.

You can watch and sub­scribe to Rate My Take­away here.