Jackie Wan, the owner and head chef of The Forum, a Chinese restaurant in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, said he reviews CCTV footage to respond to reviews he considers dishonest
The owner and head chef of a Chinese restaurant said he has become so fed-up with “non-sense” reviews that he has decided to debunk them by reviewing CCTV footage from his restaurant and posting timestamps online.
Jackie Wan has run The Forum in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, for 11 years, and after becoming frustrated with dishonest negative reviews posted on Google, TripAdvisor or Facebook, he has taken matters into his own hands. He explained that when a diner posts one, two or even three stars reviews, he carefully watches CCTV to address any problems directly with the customers.
Recently, after a person claimed that they only had four prawns in their stir-fry, Jackie launched a week-long investigation to prove that what the customer had said was incorrect. Posting a one-star review, the customer wrote: “Very average food/service. We arrived quite early for a Saturday night to avoid the crowds and our food was rushed out with very little taste and substance.
“The sizzling prawns with onions was literally a large plate of four prawns and a big pile of onions! £15 please! The special fried rice was a tiny bowl, barely two spoons full £10! The chicken curry tasted like a Tesco cheap curry pot. Overall we were sorely disappointed in the quality and presentation of the food.”
In his detailed answer, Jackie addressed a number of issues, including the number of prawns – and listed timestamps to contradict what the diner had written. The chef said: “Heres the fun part, sizzling King Prawn and rice were served at 18:53:25. your partner first had 4 spoons full of rice, while yourself had 3, u then passed back to your partner to had another scoop, (8 so far), still got 1/2 bowl left, we come back to that later….”
He then listed the timestamps, saying: “Below is the exact time for you both actually put the prawns in your mouth; 18:54:34 yourself, 18:54:39 yourself, 18:54:39 your partner, 18:55:49 your partner, 18:57:11 your partner, 19:01:33 yourself, 19:02:27 yourself.” He added: “From my limited calculating skills, I got seven pieces, which is the standard number of prawns for our main courses. Have you forgotten the three pieces your partner had?”
Jackie also addressed the concerns the customer raised over rice portions, saying: “2 more dishes were served at 18:57:01, your partner then had another 3 spoon full of rice, followed by yourself 4. again, using my limited maths skill, I got another 8 here, whats 8+8 spoons full? 16 right? just wanna make sure we’re not living in a parallel universe. A spoon full of our ceramic spoon is around 20g, what u had on Saturday night was way more than our standard portion 220g.”
And hitting back at the negative review, he concluded: “I sincerely hope this would be a good lessons for any future “Karen”, we do investigate, and we do have CCTV all around. U must be honest to share genuine reviews. As I mentioned previously, we do not intolerant online bullies!! ‘I would never go back’, u said. I would never allow u to come in!”
To a customer who complained about being charged for chilli oil, he replied: “Try asking for peppercorn sauce when ordering a steak in any steak house and see what happens.” He also hit out at a couple who took their “sick” toddler to the restaurant and were told to leave, saying CCTV footage showed other diners applauding when the family left. He wrote: “Your little one is obviously sick, with runny nose, flu … Do yourself a favour, don’t take her out.”
On Google, the restaurant currently has 322 reviews and an average score of 4.6 out of 5. Similarly, on TripAdvisor, The Forum has 306 reviews with an average rating of 4.5. The 46-year-old chef, who was born in Hong Kong and trained there before moving to the UK as a teenager, working in kitchen at luxury Hyatt hotels in London, said he only reviews CCTV if a complaint from a customer doesn’t match his or his staff’s recollection of event – or if a problem was raised days or weeks after the customer had visited.
He told The Times: “If there are issues on our side or whatever happens is our mistake then of course we try and make up for it … I’m more than happy to offer free bills. But there are some customers that it doesn’t matter what you do, you cannot please them. Those are the things I really can’t stand because we’ve done nothing wrong. I will not kneel down for anyone. I will stand up and fight when the fault is not on our side.”
After some customers edited their views and criticized the chef for his tone, which they described as aggressive, he told the newspaper: “Yes I will lose on some business, but then at the same time, I protect my name. I’m proud of what we do and I’m proud of the product and service that we deliver so I stand up for myself, my staff.” He also said he wants to create an app where restaurants can rate customers, saying “it works both ways.”
