So shameless.
Reminds me of the chao ah qua Lady Ironchef.
A food blogger recently rocked the blogging boat with his prima donna attitude and demanded that he and his entourage be fed for free at an upscale restaurant in Joo Chiat. It was blogged that the food blogger, Brad Lau, who runs a food blog called ladyironchef, had informed the management at the Private Affairs, that he would be coming down to review its Sunday brunch.
From Yahoo! Singapore Fit To Post blog, it mentioned that Lau had invited three friends to join him, but each had arrived at staggered times after Lau. After they had finished,
Lau refused to pay for the meal, which amounted to S$435, claiming that he never pays for meals that he blogs about.
Eventually, the management waived off some of the charges, but Lau was still dissatisfied that he had to pay and left the restaurant in a huff.
Such an arrogant attitude has angered the food blogging community, with many claiming that this sort of action tarnishes the good reputation built up by reputable food bloggers. From my experience, bloggers eat for free only when they have been personally invited by the restaurants or organizers for food blogging events. One example was a Moon Cake tasting event I organized two years ago with the management of the Yan Ting restaurant at The St Regis Singapore for the Flickr food bloggers. The bloggers didn't just get to test taste the mooncakes, they also attended a workshop to pair the right Chinese tea with the mooncakes.
According to another blogger friend of mine, Edvarcl Heng, who used to blog for a food magazine, Lau had already violated restaurant review ethics by declaring his media presence. And according to his friend at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), reviews are always conducted incognito so as to negate restaurant/chef/service bias. Hence, demanding for a free meal equates to bribery.
After I put up the Yahoo! Fit To Post article on my Facebook, I was not surprised to receive several heated feedback. Apparently, from a contact of his who firmly stood by his side, it seemed that this news was only one side of the story. Unfortunately, with Lau remaining uncontactable and his blog appearing to be suspended, this doesn't not help to curb speculations about his poor behavior. But according to his friend, the blog was down only because of overwhelming traffic after reports of this incident.
So Brad, if you are reading this blog, I urge you to come forward with your side of the story. As they say, you can run but you can't hide forever. And in this Internet age, nothing is forgotten as everything is archived on the World Wide Web.
SKIN MADE FROM ELEPHANT....
