Naive American tourist hilariously falls for ‘genius' London restaurant prank: ‘Talk about a mis-steak'
This American tourist got served — in more ways than one.
Liam Nelson, a New York comedian in London for a gig, thought he'd sniffed out a hidden culinary standout when he stumbled across glowing online reviews for Angus Steakhouse in Leicester Square.
But what did he actually find?
A side of steak with a supersized helping of British sarcasm.
'I went on Reddit, every single response was Angus Steakhouse in Leicester Square,' Nelson said in a June 1 TikTok video, captioned 'Talk about a mis-steak…,' which quickly racked up over 127,000 views.
'I thought maybe this is a little hole-in-the-wall area next to all these shops, like a secret hidden gem.'
Turns out, he was the latest victim of a long-running British prank — London Redditors have been 'love bombing' tourist-trap chains like Angus with five-star reviews to keep real foodies away from the city's actual best eateries, as reported by The Daily Mail.
'I found an article about how London Reddit has tried to send tourists to Angus Steakhouse to preserve the good steakhouses for themselves — genius,' he said in his nearly six-minute clip.
'I have never seen Reddit all agree on a restaurant before,' Nelson added. 'And they all had these glowing reviews … Some voice in the back of my head was saying 'this is wrong, this is not normal' and I ignored it.'
Not exactly a red flag he picked up on — until it was too late.
The joint, he soon discovered, was actually 'loud,' 'chaotic' and came with a 'giant neon sign.'
A New York funnyman thought he found a sizzling hidden gem in London — until a juicy twist at Angus Steakhouse left a bad taste.
WD Stock Photos – stock.adobe.com
Then came the gray slab of steak.
'It was bad. I tried the creamed spinach — worse than frozen somehow. London Reddit, that is one for you, zero for me.'
Fellow TikTokkers had a field day with the viral video.
'As a London Redditor who actively takes part in this joke; I'm not sorry,' one user gloated beneath Nelson's clip.
Another added, 'Hahaha I'm glad it actually got someone,' while someone else summed it up with, 'WE GOT ONE.'
Others offered redemption suggestions in the comments section: 'Go Flat Iron, it's in Covent Garden, affordable decent steak,' and 'Next time you're in London, get a steak at the Guinea Grill Pub in Mayfair! Incredible steakhouse.'
Turns out, Nelson got played — locals have been flooding tourist-trap chains like Angus with five-star reviews in a cheeky bid to steer foodies far from the real gems.
Tiktok/liamnelsoncomedy
The whole beefy debacle comes amid rising tension between real reviews and fake raves — a trend The Post has covered before.
Earlier this year, a Florida restaurant tried — and failed — to sue a customer over a one-star review.
Irene Eng, a prolific Yelp and TripAdvisor reviewer, was slapped with a defamation lawsuit by Hales Blackbrick, a Chinese eatery in Tampa, after calling its spare ribs 'dry' and its coffee 'lukewarm — a Cardinal sin!!'
The suit was tossed in February, with the judge siding with Eng's First Amendment rights.
'I'm 1,000% for freedom of speech — you can say whatever you want,' chef Richard Hales later told the Tampa Bay Times. 'We're not thin-skinned, we're just humans.'
Still, the great steak debate rages on.
And for now, Nelson's just hoping his next meal won't be medium-rare — or medium-roasted by the internet.
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It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That's not in my nature. Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, 'My body doesn't know this isn't real.' There's an episode where I'm shot in the leg, and I'm bleeding out and I'm on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I'm literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain ... in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, 'Somebody hug me! Somebody!' Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, 'Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?' This kid gets in your face, and I was like, 'Punch the kid!' My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there. Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You're using the best of two mediums. You've got that beauty and that spontaneity and that reality of the theater, and then you have the naturalism and the truth that we have with film and television. So by the time I get to that final bit, we've been through all those emotions. When I open the door and go into [Jamie's] room, everything's shaken. But it's not you. It's an out-of-body experience and just comes from somewhere else. Bardem: Listen, we don't do brain surgery, but let's give ourselves some credit. We are generous in what we do because we are putting our bodies into an experience. We are doing this for something bigger than us, and that is the story that we're telling. What have been some of the more challenging or difficult moments for you, either in your career or your recent series? Zellweger: Trying not to do what you're feeling in the moment sometimes, because it's not appropriate to what you're telling. That happens in most shows, most things that you do. I think everybody experiences it where you're bringing something from home and it doesn't belong on the set. It's impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it's bigger than you are in that moment. Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for 'The Better Sister' was [understanding] sobriety. I'm not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they're incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that's what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts. Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it's an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it? Graham: It's exceptionally difficult, I'm not going to lie. It's like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It's a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves. Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. ... I did a scene where I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who'd gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you've got to do the scene. You've got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, 'OK, those guys have got guns. They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. Do you see yourself in roles when you're watching other people's films or TV show? Graham: At the end of the day, we're all big fans of acting. That's why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations. We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are here for the right reasons. It's a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It's a team. It's in front and it's behind the camera. I think it's important that we nourish that. Henry: And remember that none of us are t—. Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don't know it. Graham: I'll explain it to you later.
