Time Out, the magazine you love to pick up from hotel lobbies, just upset some devout foodies with its latest video.
While we're sure Time Out had good intentions, when it compared eating xiao long bao (Shanghai soup dumplings) to those viral videos of blackhead extractions and pimple popping, the reactions were less than appetizing.
Mashable reports that Time Out posted a video to its Facebook page promoting Dumplings Legend, a London restaurant. "Love popping spots AND eating dumplings? Combine the two with exploding soup dumplings at Dumplings Legend," the post reads.
For those unfamiliar, xiao long bao are a staple at dim sum restaurants and dumpling spots. They're different from your run-of-the-mill dumplings, because they're very juicy — like the name soup dumpling implies, there's a lot of broth in those little bundles. But Time Out went one step further by comparing them to pimples. By drawing a parallel between something people find pretty delicious and something people see as pretty grotesque (no matter how satisfying), the magazine drew some ire from food fans who thought it was disrespectful.
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Plus, the way the video showed the dumplings isn't how people even eat them. By puncturing the xiao long bao's thin, delicate skin and letting all that glorious broth just dribble out onto the plate (or even worse, in those bamboo steamers), anyone eating them is losing out on the best part of the experience. Not to mention, it's disrespectful to an entire culture.
Commenters weren't happy, stating that the video was "offensive" and adding a few dermatological comparisons of their own.
Dumplings Legend did respond to the controversy, albeit in a very diplomatic way. "It is clear that there are many different ways to eat [soup dumplings]," the restaurant told Mashable.
Want to see how most people eat the dumplings and the broth within without offending anyone? Of course, there's a video for that from that other hotel lobby magazine you love, Zagat.