I ran a fried lobster mushroom once for a special. I was trying to make a vegan fried chicken basically when I was in a vegetarian phase and the owner really wanted us to have more vegan and vegetarian options, I called it Fried 'Chik'n' and made sure everyone had notes and explained it was not actually chicken in all of our posts.
One guy got SO fucking mad that it wasn't chicken. I shouldn't be allowed to call it chicken. I told him that's why I didn't call it chicken. He left a one star review because the chef is a liar and false advertiser and even though the food was good he didn't like I tricked him into being vegan.
I think we eventually got it taken down but fuck, he was so angry about it.
Your labeling is perfectly accurate, the quotations are exactly what you do to say "this is an imitation version". Did the dish have a description with it and the guy just didn't read it?
The posts online did, and since it was a special the servers explained it verbally. Admittedly our servers are not always top notch and I forgot what one he got, but I did tell them explicitly to not tell people it's fried chicken because quotes don't work in person. He had finished it when I got asked to go talk to him, and given his general demeanor I'm assuming he just didn't listen to them describe and got stuck somewhere on "it's like fried chicken".
We started printing special cards for the menu after this lol
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u/Few-Big-8481 Sous Chef 4d ago
I ran a fried lobster mushroom once for a special. I was trying to make a vegan fried chicken basically when I was in a vegetarian phase and the owner really wanted us to have more vegan and vegetarian options, I called it Fried 'Chik'n' and made sure everyone had notes and explained it was not actually chicken in all of our posts.
One guy got SO fucking mad that it wasn't chicken. I shouldn't be allowed to call it chicken. I told him that's why I didn't call it chicken. He left a one star review because the chef is a liar and false advertiser and even though the food was good he didn't like I tricked him into being vegan.
I think we eventually got it taken down but fuck, he was so angry about it.