Hey, I'm not an inveterate, I have a backbone and everything!

Paulauner bakery on Fenyang Lu does a better brezel for 6 RMB- same size, slightly too dark skin, but correct taste and texture- and they have a terrace garden with friendly cats.

Sigh, repost sans errors. I notice that my comment has been harmonized :) Something wrong with pointing out that no one's commented on this post? Perhaps I need to express more of an opinion. How is your publication allowing this to be a published article on your website? I don't know Dave Taylor personally, but as a reader, this looks like an attack on a new place because one of your writers hates the brezels at a certain bakery. Even if the brezels taste like, I dono, durian on stinky tofu rubbed onto an ape's private regions (worst thing I can think of), I think the author's hatred/criticism of this place is kind of unnatural. Not to mention awkward in how personal it feels. And unprofessional. "I predict this place will fail, mark my words! Their bretzels are traumatizing." There. I've summed up this author's point. Does it really require three blogs and also a trip to Germany?! (seriously? )

Did you read the first blog about this, or are you jumping in now? This got personal when the Lind management blew off 3 promises of followup, including one following on a personal meeting with the person handling their PR, which was before the first blog. I can't name her due to CW policy, which I will continue to respect. After blog 1, she avoided me and repeatedly blew off her commitments to answer my questions, but still found time to phone up my editor and complain about me. There was also the incident of the sock-puppets jumping on my case and accusing me of fabricating my work. I've got a huge problem with the expats screwing expats mentality here, and places like Lind get on my nerves. They charge ridiculous prices for genuinely crap food, then play dirty when they get called on it. There is no need for it, no call for it, and I saw absolutely no reason not to go to the mat against it. Hell, I left CW because they refused to back me on this- not allowing me to say that Lind blew up at them over my first blog, and not referencing ANY dissenting opinion (mine & St.Cavish's) in the online writeup of Lind until this final spasm happened, among other things. They even memory holed this for a while, while wheels turned. This isn't print, it's a blog, and by that it means op-ed. I was going to print the entire email string to show that they were playing dirty (and to satisfy the complaints of people like you) but that got vetoed, too. I stand by my opinion of their brezeln, and I certainly stand by my opinion of Lind's management- they tried to play dirty, which means they aren't willing to stand on the quality of their food or service. And Truffley- 2 blogs, and the trip to Germany was incidental. As for the predicting they'll fail, well, that's just experience and math. They have a shaky concept, and my most conservative estimate puts their daily turnover needed to meet their overheads at about 10k RMB (prob closer to 15k). They aren't meeting that, they won't meet that, and they will fail. That doesn't have anything to do with their brezeln- that has to do with them be late to the party, and having a bad business plan.

The lack of hard returns in the comment syntax is truly galling.

The original blog, Truffley, was quite funny in its criticisms of Lind, it was certainly overblown but after having tasted this for myself, seen the poor quality bread and paid high prices for it, the writer was correct. The subsequent "toys out of the pram" tantrum Lind threw was pretty amusing - if only because they never once addressed the real problem: the bread is bad and too expensive. It was an attempt at undermining the credibility of not only the writer, but also the portal that published it. Self-same portal subsequently produced a review that didn't really refute any of the writer's claims, but praised the establishment. Which in all honesty looked more than a little bit like a climb down. While this was going on, shills from Lind attempted a character assassination of users of the web portal, which prompted childishly hilarious retaliation on the part of said users -and the spending of too much money on poor products. All through this, Lind has never addressed the real issue: why is the bread so expensive when it is so bad?

Hi Narsfweasels and Foodiedave, Appreciate your responses on this :) It's 1:38am in the morning and I'll eek out my response in a saner time of morning.