I don’t know about you but when I walk into a new restaurant, I usually have a hard time choosing a dish—the ingredient list in the menu says nothing about how good the chef is. And if I ask the waiter’s opinion, how can I be sure they have taste buds as sophisticated as mine? Pictures of the food aren’t much help either. We all know that what you see is not what you get. My girlfriend says I have trust issues but I don’t believe her. I blame McDonald’s advertising.

Customers at Cuisine AuntDai, however, don’t have this problem. The owner of this Chinese restaurant in Montreal, Canada, has written incredibly genuine, no bs descriptions for their entire menu!

Recently, one of his clients, Kim Belair, turned to Twitter to share these wholesome texts, and they instantly went viral, generating over 72,000 likes and 10,000 retweets. Let’s hope this newly-found Internet fame will keep the joint afloat throughout the pandemic! After all, you can’t help but respect someone who’s trying to make an honest living.

Image credits: BagelofDeath

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Belair, who is a writer/narrative designer working in video games through her company, Sweet Baby Inc., first heard about AuntDai through a friend who loved the place and swore it was the best Chinese food in town. “I meant to go, but before I could, the original location burned to the ground. It was only when it opened the new location that I finally got a chance to order,” she told Bored Panda.

“It was really during the pandemic that it became a near-weekly staple for my partner and me. We usually have at least one dedicated ‘order-in night’, but AuntDai is good enough that we sometimes find ourselves thinking about making dinner and going ‘…How about AuntDai, though?'”

Image credits: BagelofDeath

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

Image credits: auntdai

The writer really loves the food at the restaurant. Despite Fei’s humility, it’s Belair’s favourite place in the city and she believes every dish is really, really strong. “Each one feels like it sets out to do something different, and nails it,” Belair explained. “My partner’s a chef, and he often says that what sets AuntDai apart is this feeling of subtlety that many restaurants don’t get. They hit little details that don’t stand out on their own, but when contrasted with other places they consistently nail flavours, textures, and quality of their ingredients.”

Belair recommends their hot pepper beef on some rice with a bunch of dry-fried green beans and cabbage. “It’s out of control delicious.”

Image credits: BagelofDeath

People really loved the honest descriptions

Image credits: MajimeKoala

Image credits: konichihow

After Kim’s thread went viral, the owner of the restaurant created a Twitter account just to thank her

Image credits: feigangfei

Belair said she and Feigang ended up having a really lovely chat for about a half-hour! He told her more about his upbringing, his childhood, his work, what inspired him and his wife to open the restaurant, and how things have been going. “He’s such an interesting guy and his story is so compelling that I genuinely feel really lucky to have met him in this unusual way,” she said. “Like, for all the times I’ve had his food and loved it, and for all the comfort it’s offered me during this past year, it took this for us to finally talk. I’m eager to remain friends.”

Also, Belair thinks it’s funny that she’s a business owner as well and works in writing and narrative; they both found some commonalities, both in building a career and in having a critical eye on everything they make themselves. “No matter what you do, you’re always your toughest critic, and it’s reassuring to surface that with other people. I think it’s probably why the menu went viral: people see something of themselves in it, and they appreciate not only that honesty but the relatability of it.

“Everyone wants to be that candid or to have someone be that candid with them, and I think it’s just incredibly refreshing.”

Image credits: feigangfei

“On January 11, Monday afternoon, I received an email from a journalist from a German newspaper called Süddeutsche Zeitung translated as ‘South German’ saying a tweet about our restaurant went viral,” Feigang Fei, the owner of the restaurant, wrote in his blog. “I thought it was spam and replied to ask for screenshots. She replied with the Twitter link. OMG, it was real I could not believe that tweet got almost 60K likes and 10K retweets even I am not a Twitter fan I knew it was not an easy number to get.”

Feigang agreed to this interview and everything started escalated pretty fast. Before he knew it, the man had interview requests from CBC, Global News TV, The Guardian, Today, Food Network, and the list goes on. He could not believe what just happened to him.

“When all this magic happens I can only think of one person that I have to say huge thanks to. It’s Kim Belair. On Saturday night I recovered my dormant Twitter account @feigangfei which was registered in 2011 when I was thinking about learning English by joining social media but there was zero activity during the past 10 years.”

“I replied to that HOLY tweet stating that I am the owner of Cuisine AuntDai and my name Feigang Fei. Right now, all those big-name media articles have Feigang Fei, Kim Belair, and AuntDai all together.”

Friday and Saturday the restaurant saw a lot of new customers and many of them told Feigang they heard about him on the radio or saw him on TV and they loved it.

Image credits: BagelofDeath

While people continued talking about his menu

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