Back in July of 2005, I wrote a fairly negative review of Montclair Bistro in Oakland. The thing is, I prefaced in my post that it was a review from a single meal, and how much I hated writing those. But really, the meal was so poor, and a service issue so poorly handled, that I felt the need to write about it, and let future potential visitors to the restaurant form their own opinions, because Montclair Bistro? She ain't cheap.
That, in my opinion, is the beauty of a blog or a site like Yelp - you can make judgments based on what the reviewer has written -- in this case, that I'd only visited the one time, on my own dime, and wouldn't go back because it was a meal that made me feel ripped off.
Yesterday, I got a comment from someone defending the restaurant. Which, you know, I am fine with. In fact, Faith (someone I've met and respect), wrote a comment about some good meals there, and I responded openly and honestly.
However. This comment? It's pissy, and derogatory, and sounded like a shill. So I checked Statcounter, and realized that someone had been doing a Google search on "Montclair Bistro Bad Reviews"; a bit more digging revealed that the IP address of the person who linked through belonged to Henry Vortriede DBA. Henry Vortriede is the chef and owner of Montclair Bistro.
I wrote to the person who posted, Maria Maras, and told her I'd be removing the comment since she didn't reveal her affiliation to the restaurant; I also suggested that if Mr. Vortriede wanted someone to do his dirty work for him, he should at least have it done somewhere other than his office!. (Yea, I realize that latter part was catty. Oh well.)
The reply came back from one "Rachel Stroud", saying:
I searched out bad reviews because the guests that are attending dinner with me, brought to my attention about a bad review on the Restaurant.I searched it out and found your review. Don't be so quick to judge, try it again. I have a right to my opinion. As do you.....maybe I think your review was badly written, that is my opinion. I don't know the owner. If I did don't you think that the dirty work should have been done before this. Erase my comment it is a free world.
Now, I didn't want to turn this into a pissing match, so I pretty much left it alone, except to remind her that the computer she wrote the post from was, in fact, registered on Mr. Vortriede's network.
But I ask you, dear reader, what would YOU have done? Would you have called out a shill in a situation like this?
I want Gastronomie to be a place where anyone feels comfortable about commenting and being part of the exchange of ideas and community. But I worry that when someone DOESN'T reveal their affiliation to a relevant party to the discussion, and posts a comment like what Rachel/Maria posted, it affects the integrity of what you read here.
Let's chat - tell me your thoughts, tell me how you would handle this, and how you want to see your favorite bloggers (foodie or otherwise) handle situations like this.
Oh, and HAPPY WEEKEND TO YOU ALL!
