We live in an age of technology, which means that there is a wealth of information at our fingertips. We often use this to our advantage when we are making big life decisions, like where to go for dinner.
How many times have we gone online to read restaurant reviews of a place before committing to an evening of dining? Probably a fair few of us.
Restaurant reviews can be incredibly helpful, especially when they’re honest opinions given by actual customers rather than paid reviewers.
But there is one Chinese restaurant in Montreal, Aunt Dai, who has an extremely honest owner. The owner was not at all afraid to be very open and honest about their menu. It has been like this for many years, but it didn’t go viral until the CEO of Sweet Baby, Kim Belair, posted several different screenshots that featured the menu from her “favorite Chinese restaurant,” in the city, Aunt Dai.
In the post, she wrote alongside the photos, “[B]ut the REAL treat is the menu, featuring extremely honest commentary from the owner.” Lots of people were amused by the honesty of the menu and the post was shared over 70,000 times.
Such descriptions from the owner, Feigang Fei, include “isn’t THAT good” when describing the Orange Beef, and “not a huge fan” of the Sweet and Spicy Pork Strips. However, he did clarify that if you really want them he’ll make them for you. And he was the first to admit that the Imperial Rolls are tasty but too small in size. Overall, Fei will regularly add new items to the menu and review them, but the entire menu has come with the warning that “it’s your call.”
The honesty of a restaurant owner talking about his own food is quite refreshing. During an interview with the Today Show, Fei shared how the menu descriptions came to be. They started out as a way to let people who might be unfamiliar with the cuisine know what they are ordering. But then it grew from there, and he got more and more honest – something that his customers encouraged and were amused by. And that is how his menu came to be so brutally honest about what you are ordering.
His menu seems to have attracted quite a bit of attention, which is always a good thing for business. However, regardless of whether or not his menu is trending, the honest Fei just wants people to not have any expectations when they walk through the door. As he said to the Today Show, “A lot of people want to be the best …and we are simply not the best. That’s a fact. We just try to be a little bit better every day. And that’s how I see it. I don’t want to get people disappointed.”
That is more than fair.