Cheeky 'dine-and-dash' man gives Shanghai Metro lines restaurant reviews
Police finally caught up with a cheeky ‘dine-and-dash’ man after he ate too many free meals.
The man, surnamed Zhang, was collared in a Putuo District restaurant, at 7:30pm on June 10, after a year of doing runners from restaurants along Shanghai’s Metro lines.
The eat-and-run man’s year-long tactic came to an end soon after he consumed his last free meal for around 100 yuan (US$15). He told the establishment’s waitress that he had forgotten to bring any cash with him when she asked him to pay the bill. And when paying by mobile phone or asking a friend to pay for him was suggested, Zhang said he had no friends in Shanghai and had lost his mobile phone.
The restaurant staff called the local police as the freeloader lingered around the restaurant in the early hours of the morning.
After an initial investigation, Zhang admitted he had traveled along 14 Metro lines and consumed two meals a day without paying since his February 2016 arrival in Shanghai.
Zhang also confessed to the police that he had failed to find a job since he came to the city before giving a critique of all the restaurants he had eaten in. He said Metro Line 1 had the best food while those along Line 16 were the worst in Shanghai.