Harvard professor enraged by Chinese restaurant

Online culinary school students should be aware of the fact that those who enter the business of being a proprietor of a restaurant simply won’t be able to please all of their clientele. No matter how hard they try to deliver a perfect culinary experience to their guests, there will always be moments in which something goes slightly wrong. Luckily, most of these mistakes can be easily resolved. Recently, though, a minor error in a restaurant in a Boston suburb became the subject of national news attention, illustrating the ways in which things can occasionally snowball out control. According to the Washington Post, a Harvard University professor took to the internet to eviscerate a Brookline-based Chinese restaurant.

The error
The Boston Globe has reported that the professor, Benjamin G. Edelman, recently ordered four items from the takeout menu of Sichuan Garden, a small, family-run restaurant. Upon receiving his food, however, Edelman apparently noticed that he was charged an extra dollar on each of the items he had ordered, totaling an extra four dollars over the price indicated on the establishments online menu. For most, this might have been taken as an innocent enough mistake. For Edelman, however, it seems to have been cause for great alarm.

The reaction
Edelman promptly emailed the establishment, explaining his outrage at the mistake and demanding that something be done. The restaurant’s manager and bartender, Ran Duan, apologized promptly and explained that he would update the online menu and offered Edelman an updated menu for future reference. This didn’t suffice for the professor, though, and he proceeded to demand that he be given a triple value refund of $12, as is often the case under Massachusetts state consumer protection laws.

The spiral
The two gentlemen, then, entered into a somewhat heated email exchange, some of which can be read here. Ultimately, the emails came to surface on Internet, being shared widely amongst various social media platforms, leading to the story being picked up my multiple major national news outlets. Edelman received relatively widespread criticism for his actions, with many individuals stating that he was completely unjustified in his behavior. Following the public reaction to the situation, Edelman publicly apologized to both Duan and the restaurant several days later.

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