Taiwan food critic jailed for criticizing food

Last night, while dining out with a friend, I ordered the carrot ginger soup.

No wait, there's more.

It was too salty, and I said so. Out loud to my friend.

Little did I know I could have been sent to jail …

… if I lived in Taiwan.

On Tuesday, a Taiwanese blogger with the surname Liu, wrote that a restaurant’s beef noodles were "too salty." As a result, she was sentenced to 30 days detention and two years of probation.

Harsh.

Adding "salt" to the wound, Liu was also ordered to pay $7,000 (NT$200,000) in compensation to the restaurant for loss of revenues due to her blog post, which also called the restaurant unsanitary.

According to the Taipei Times:

After visiting a Taichung beef noodle restaurant in July 2008, where she had dried noodles and side dishes, Liu wrote that the restaurant served food that was too salty, the place was unsanitary because there were cockroaches and that the owner was a “bully” because he let customers park their cars haphazardly, leading to traffic jams.

While Liu's statement about the cockroaches was taken to be a statement of fact, her criticism of the food was deemed unlawful due to the fact that she only tried one dish.

But I mean. Who orders a second dish when the first one was too salty?