Holly here! Linda is an amazingly cool woman after my own heart, and runs a charity that I am proud to help out with. This post is a fabulous example of why no matter what you do, proofreading and fact checking are always good ideas.
Dude, Seriously?
By Linda Blakely
I’m not going to name names because I don’t want any fallout from this.
My husband and I went out to dinner Monday night at our favorite restaurant. It’s a favorite because the owner is a dear friend. Even if he weren’t, it would be a favorite. But I digress.
The chef gave us a review that he had printed out from the web. From the way it read, it was from some random blogger who had a high school education and the need to feel important.
Some excerpts, with my corrections for you:
“*The restaurant consists of one large room with a bar in the corner.*” Not quite, Sparky. The bar is right smack-dab in the center, not in the corner. And if you had ventured anywhere past the main room you’d see that there was a gorgeous, cozy wine lounge that is a great place to relax with friends.
“*The tables are covered with white table clothes *(sic)* that appear very clean and crisp.” *Table clothes? Really? Would that be haute cuisine couture?
“*Our waitress also brought over a stack of grain crisps that looked like they were broken by hand. These were accompanied by a green humice* (sic) *dip that was delicious*.” I think you mean “hummus”, but you’d still be incorrect. It’s edamame spread, but you get an F for effort. And they’re flax-seed crackers made by hand, not grain crisps. It even says so on the menu if you cared to read it.
It went on to leave a less-than-stellar review for a restaurant that had been in the top 25 for our city for five years in a row. I just chalked it up to someone with an opinion who wanted to share it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I’m always willing to share mine. But if you’re going to publish a fair review, you need to be responsible and make sure that what you’re publishing is factual. And that your spelling doesn’t look like that of a fourth-grader.
It wasn’t MY restaurant, it was my good friend’s. I took the review to heart and it bothered me as much as it did my friend. I wanted to see more of what the blogger had written and reviewed, so I did a little investigating. It turns out the writer is not just a random blogger, but a restaurant reviewer for a major monthly publication in our city. He graduated cum laude from a large university with a B.A. in English. In ENGLISH. I shared this little tidbit with my husband and we both got a good chuckle out of it.
Linda Blakely wears many hats, but is currently the mastermind behind ConnieCaps, a charity that provides stylish handmade hats to cancer patients. She can be reached at lmb@conniecaps.org, or @ConnieCaps on Twitter.
Related posts: