AuntDai is a Chinese restaurant in Montreal. One of hundreds. And one of a kind. The most popular item on their menu? It’s the brutally honest reviews from the restaurant’s owner, Feigang Fei.
On the page dedicated to Orange Beef, you will read that it’s "not as good as the General Tao Chicken” (another of AuntDai’s specialties). "Anyway, I'm not a fan of Chinese food from North America and it's your decision," Feigang concludes.
The review for the Beef with Satay sauce is inconclusive: the corresponding page points out that the businessman has not even tried his new recipe yet. “This is new on the menu. According to many customers, this one is very popular. I still haven't been able to taste it. It seems like I should spend more time eating in my own restaurant,” reads the description.
Is that a normal thing for a restaurant to do? Is it common and expected? Of course not. So it didn’t take long for this refreshingly sincere self-criticism to get noticed.
One of the customers, Kim Belair, shared a few photos of the menu on Twitter. Her post went viral: more than 75K likes and over 12K retweets. This made the restaurant so popular that the owner had to create a Twitter account. And the first tweet he sent was to sincerely thank Kim for bringing AuntDai and its owner this newfound fame.
So, next time you’re trying to invent a new superlative or come up with a new way to say ‘buy our stuff, because it’s great’ — just ask yourself if a little brutal honesty would stand out more.