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Food

30th Mar 2021

Chinese takeaway goes viral for owner’s brutal responses to negative reviews

Claudia McInerney

The owner’s sassy replies have now gone viral

As you scroll through the vast selection of takeaways on JustEat, Deliveroo or UberEats, you cannot help but notice their review rating.

Takeaway reviews inadvertently influence our decision to opt for a particular eatery. You put your trust in the thousands of people who have sampled the food before you and just hope that they have good taste, too.

Usually, takeaway owners are apologetic to unhappy customers, potentially offering them discounts to sample their food again. Usually, not always.

The owner of a Chinese takeaway in Leeds has gone viral after leaving sassy responses to customers who left negative reviews online.

The owner of the takeaway ‘Oriental Express’, Alice Cheung, has run the Pudsey-based family business since 2004.

The Oriental Express has a 5-star rating on the online food ordering site JustEat, which is flooded with positive reviews for Cheung’s Chinese takeaway.

However, the owner does not hold back when she responds negative views it seems.

In response to a customer who said the food was “terrible” on JustEat, Cheung responded: “You ordered a Vegetarian Munch Box and then called the shop to complain there was no MEAT in it. We sent you what you ordered and there was nothing wrong with it. The bad review is to cover your error.”

Speaking of this poor review, Cheung said: “That’s when we first started leaving replies, when we noticed that some people were leaving bad reviews about things we weren’t to blame for or just weren’t true.”

In response to a customer who said there was not enough food for the price of the meal, Cheung said: “I’m sorry the food was not good enough for you, you should cook your own, thank you for the review.”

One customer said that the chicken wings at the Oriental Express were “not cooked properly”, to which Cheung responded: “Please get in touch so we can arrange for you to come in and show us how to cook chicken wing properly.”

Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post, the owner said she hopes her witty responses ‘bring a bit of banter’ to customers.

Cheung told the Yorkshire Evening Post that 95 per cent of reviews she received were positive.

“However, sometimes you get customers that just like to use the platform as an excuse to abuse small family businesses,” she added.