One of the best and worst parts of working at Menupages is the task of editing user reviews. Our users are, for the most part, thoughtful people who leave informative and balanced feedback that requires little fixing before approval.
A minority of reviews, however, must be nixed. Often this is because the writers have obviously never used a machine with a keyboard before. Others are either so overly sensitive or so thoroughly burned by a certain restaurant that their reviews turn into descriptions of what might be a modern Dante’s ninth level. It’s hard to stay relevant and topical when you’re in full-on “vent” mode, so often those reviews get nixed, however, they’re some of the best reading.
You’d think that two hours of such editing work would be enough for today, but for some reason, those horror stories are ultimately compelling. Perhaps that’s why, even after a marathon editing session, it was hard to click away from the Accidental Hedonist post, “The Worst Meal You’ve Paid For,” in which readers relate, well, tales of the worst meals they’ve paid for.
Frankly, a lot of our users get more colorful and horrific, but it’s still hard to read something like this,
“What arrived was pasta that was both crunchy on the outside, and soggy in the middle. The Sauce? The sauce was water with a reddish tint, with a tiny pool of Kraft Parmesan Sawdust pooling itself into mini quicksand.”
without the same savage fascination with which you observe the wreckage of a traffic accident.
Many responses are relate-able, but some are just puzzling: “I spent a week in New Orleans with the wrong people and got 2 decent cups of soup out of it.” What? Ah, well, It’s a good way to avoid working for a few minutes this afternoon, anyway.
The Worst Meal You’ve Paid For [Accidental Hedonist]
[Photo: via octoberdog/flickr]
