All Over Albany

There's a comment in my soup

There was a good story by Alexandra Field on the CW15 News at 10 this week about local restaurants interacting with social media.

The piece focuses on a change Ala Shanghai, a Chinese restaurant in Latham, made to their egg drop soup after reading a comment Albany Jane made about it on Albany Eats.

We like this little story involving Ala Shanghai and Albany Jane, for a few reasons...

Ala Shanghai was paying attention
The Capital Region has a relatively active food blog scene, so it's good to hear that restaurants owners are paying attention. Sometimes the comments on a blog or Facebook or Twitter (or wherever) can sting -- but the opportunity to get honest feedback about your product is valuable.

Ala Shanghai did something about it
It would have been easy for Ala Shanghai to just dismiss what Albany Jane said about their soup, but her comments prompted them to take another look at their product -- and make it better. It's admirable they reacted so constructively to the criticism.

Albany Jane was critical, but not harsh
It's easy to go overboard with criticism when you don't have to look someone in the eye (comment rage happens). In this case, though, Albany Jane's comment was critical -- but she was specific, fair and offered a suggestion:

We both got egg drop. They were fine, but a little on the cornstarch/gummy side and could have used a swift kick of white pepper. Generic cheap Chinese egg drop soup here, but it's a lunch special egg drop soup, so I wasn't expecting anything mindblowing.

We know Albany Jane in person, so this isn't surprising. She's a lovely person. We could all probably learn from her example.

There's now better soup
We all win!