Amusing menu gaffes - what's yours? [moved from Boston board]

[greygarious]

The website for the new Andover restaurant, Serene, is rife with typos and misspellings, such as Shrimp Gramanier, and other errors, e.g. the risotto is SERVED with arborio rice! Many ethnic restaurant menus reflect their owners' imperfect command of English, often to charming/amusing effect. The menu for the excellent The Pongal, a new Indian restaurant in Billerica, contains the following: "...special plates served with day of the potato preparation...". I envision a 1950's horror movie with a monster in a rubber spud suit - Mr. Potato Head Runs Amok. The owners have other Pongals in India; googling led me to a review in an Indian newspaper, which said that a particular dish "goes down your gullet effortlessly". Can't help it, I picture the place settings including a feeding tube laid out next to the other cutlery.

What's your favorite menu chuckle?

[BobB]

Just today, in the Boston Globe, was a quarter-page ad for a suburban restaurant offering a "Pre-Fixe" menu. I thought this was priceless, especially as it bills itself as "Hip and modern as any city venue, but without the Boston expense."

I suppose they have a point - semi-literacy does seem to be sadly "hip and modern."

[LePetitChefCanadien]

Didn't see these first hand but I have gotten a few good laughs out of them.
According to my mom, there used to be a little Korean restaurant near where we live (it's been gone for a while now) that had a sign advertising a "Smorgasborb".

She's also told me about a Greek restaurant that mailed out flyers that included menus. Apparently, they were serving "hot children soup".

[LePetitChefCanadien]

Oh, and I saw an ad for a restaurant in Victoria that serves "three coarse meals". I guess all the other meals must be smoother.

[alkapal]

le petit -- i think i met a few smorgasborbs in college. ;-).

[arcanium]

Not really menu, but my favorite years ago came from the deli section of Basha's supermarket in Phoenix, where knockwurst and sauerkraut was written as "knockers on krauts."

[eclecticsynergy]

Creative marketing.

[jumpingmonk]

And I suppose that every bag of Northern Spy's helps defeat the Confederacy

[rockycat]

LOL.

[bushwickgirl]

Perspicacious and amusing, as was the creative apple marketing.

[jumpingmonk]

Thank you

Of couse we all know that, as Edgar Apple Poe pointed how, few thing can match "the Glory of Pomme Gris, or the Grandeur of a Rome."

[eclecticsynergy]

Honesty in labeling, a sign posted next to a menu board:

"Today's Soup- Cream Of Yesterday's Special"

[rockycat]

Today I saw a "Chic Pea Salad" on the menu of an upmarket Lebanese restaurant. Talk about classing things up. I'm kind of dowdy myself, though, so I would probably feel awkward ordering it.

[jgg13]

There's a vietnamese place near me that has a lot of "frank steak" in their beef dishes

[alkapal]

maybe just a bit better than the "goth" or "hun" steaks….

[jumpingmonk]

Or maybe the persons who serves it to you dresses as one of Charlemagne's paladins.

Wonder what happens when you put frank steak and tartar steak (steak tartare) next to each other on the plate?

[alkapal]

well, after they battle, then i suspect that the tartare is not going to look much worse for the wear. ;-).

<somehow, monty python and the holy grail is drifting through the back of my mind. "it's ONLY A FLESH WOUND!">

[thew]

i'd take a frank steak over a disingenuous one, any time

[bushwickgirl]

This thread never fails to amuse, and often to enlighten.

[somervilleoldtimer]

My sister gave me a pack of gum with this blurb on the side: "Still tastes like soap!"

[buttertart]

Looks like your sister and you share a sense of humor. A fun one.

[somervilleoldtimer]

And to buttertart: Yes, we think we're very funny!

[lavaca]

Musk-flavored gum?

[somervilleoldtimer]

Don't know. I'm afraid to open the package.

[shecrab]

"All steaks broiled to your likeness". I don't think many kitchens could pull off such feats of portraiture.

[alkapal]

hey, if burnt toast can have the likeness of the holy madonna, then who says a rib-eye can't capture yours?

[tracylee]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/imag...

[alkapal]

aha, that's a new one on me. prices just plummeted on ebay!

[jumpingmonk]

The now make little iron things that allow you to brand your initials into your steak. I imagine that, with enought time and money, a similar device could be made to put your portrait on there. Thoufg I admit that, in a resuturaunt setting, this might not work (unless you whole clientele were such long term patrons that you'd actually had 5-6 months to take thier pictures, send them off to the manufacturer, had them make the brands and gotten them back to use.)

[alkapal]

i'm picturing someone walking in with their face-brand.

[hill food]

someone in SF, CA did that to imprint tortillas with the BVM and JC for a street festival. (yes I know heretical and offensive to some, but really just making fun of people who only see what they want to see)

[eclecticsynergy]

Often some good ones at:

http://engrishfunny.failblog.org/

[buttertart]

I don't find too many of those amusing - having studied Chinese and knowing how hard it is to get characters written correctly it doesn't surprise me when people whose native language isn't English get things wrong.

One of the ones always commented on is "crap" for "crab". Try remembering the strokes and their proper order in the Chinese word (2 fairly complicated characters) for crab...I can see someone saying hmm, which way does the stroke on that last letter go, above or below that little backwards "c" thing???

Sorry to sound like a prig but there it is.

[small h]

I understand your unamused-ness, but I think the particular example you give has less to do with "haha, stupid Chinese people" and more to do with "haha, you said 'crap'." If "crab" were misspelled "crad," fewer people would mock it. Or even notice, probably.

[buttertart]

Possibly so, and that's perhaps not the best example since there is the childish joke angle to it as well as the writng in a foreign language, but I'd like to see menus translated into Chinese by English speakers armed only with an English-Chinese dictionary or Google Translate...I doubt they'd be bereft of howlers.

[small h]

If there is a site that mocks English speakers for their failure to communicate properly in some other language, I promise to look at it and laugh. I know my own attempts to speak anything other than English are usually met with polite tolerance, at best.

[thew]

im sure it would be hysterical. and i'm ok with that. but not speaking or reading chinese i wouldnt get the joke. but in english it makes me laugh

[somervilleoldtimer]

Oh, it's actually incredibly funny! Try googling a recipe for General Gau's chicken or something, find one written in Chinese, and then do the automatic translate for some really good laughs!
I'm constantly entertaining small children with my terrible Spanish that I keep using. Children are not too polite to laugh at me, not with me.

[alkapal]

if i say i'm feeling crabby or crappy, people know it IS the same thing. ;-).

[TexSquared]

Even more at http://engrish.com

[roxlet]

Here is a menu item from an Asian restaurant in Egypt. For all you diners who are unsure as to what exactly "Poo" as a category is on the menu, the restaurant provides the translation parenthetically -- (crap). I have the photo, but I can't get the durn thing to load...

[grayelf]

I take it you were in a Thai restaurant, roxlet :-)

[roxlet]

That's right, grayelf!

[Leonardo]

http://www.engrish.com/2010/08/now-wi...
"Chinese Semen Cannabis Drink"
They wanted to say "hemp seed drink"

[Leonardo]

http://www.engrish.com/2011/06/chicke...
"The chicken soup searches and confiscates hand"

[alkapal]

…is worth two chicken soups in the bush?

[buttertart]

The best Thai restaurant ever in NYC was called "Poo Thai" (was in Jackson Heights). We loved that place, it was magic. It died the death after a couple of years...Poo was the fabulous woman cook's nickname, it means "little piglet" or something of that nature.

[phantomdoc]

Chinese menu in California:
Poultry:
Sweet and sour dick.

[siki2]

My favorite sports drink - Pocari Sweat. Not a "gaffe" but the actual name of a Japanese sports drink.

[rebrites]

Chinese restaurant in Leon, Spain: "Casa Rong." Having dated Mister (W)rong for many years, I love eating at his little place, where their "leg rolls" are a popular appetizer. (You can also choose "beer consummate" (beef consummé?) or "extruded porcine matter stoned sizzling hot."

Not bad, really, for a Chinese menu translated to Spanish and then into English!

[lasarney]

upper right side of the menu in flowing, cursive script, "pieces of resistent tripe", aka "piece de resistance, tripe"!

[alkapal]

oh gosh, that "pieces of resistent tripe" cracked me up. good name for a grunge band, eh?

[thew]

not exactly a gaffe, but i thought of this thread immediately:

[goodhealthgourmet]

was just perusing the menu for Burger Kitchen in LA and i'm laughing about the "burblanc sauce" served with their salmon patty :)

[alkapal]

boy, that sounds so appetizing, doesn't it?

"ooop, excuse me, i've gotta ...<burblanc>."

[small h]

Isn't that where Laugh-In was filmed? Beautiful downtown Burblanc?

[rockycat]

LOL!

[thew]

from a little Dominican place in Harlem, NYC:

clamps with rice

ouch

[Caroline1]

Browsing on-line menus last week, I ran across some sort of dish topped with a "crispy poached egg." I kept browsing, then couldn't find my way back to it. My mind still cannot wrap around a CRISPY poached egg. Poach, then roll in panko?

[thew]

or oil poached?

[Caroline1]

I've been oil poaching eggs since I was a teen. Well, BACON FAT poached is more like it. How many hours ya think the egg would have to simmer under oil to reach the "crispy" stage? '-)

I do wonder if they meant "crispy fried" instead of poached. Not that I find crispy fried all that attractive. I find "crispy" egg whites that brown around the edges of an egg tough and too chewy. Nevertheless, I do seem to cook them that way far too often when I'm in a hurry to get them on top of waffles... <sigh>

[small h]

A crispy poached egg is deep fried post poaching (and say that five times fast). Here's one recipe:

http://elseachelsea.typepad.com/froli...

[BobB]

An egg dipped in egg batter & crumbs, then deep fried. Now THAT has potential!

[alanbarnes]

Might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb - why not make it a Scotch Egg? You lose the runny yolk, but you get sausage. Mmmmm, sausage...

[linguafood]

i like the way you think, alan.

[BobB]

But I love runny yolks. Maybe a crispy poached egg on top of a sausage patty, on a well-toasted buttered english muffin, topped with some hollandaise... and bacon on the side!

[Emmmily]

Drool... Though I might add a slice of cheddar.

[BobB]

Hmm. I'll have to think about that one. Cheddar and hollandaise together?

[Caroline1]

Thanks for the recipe. I'm just not sure it sets my mouth watering. I can't imagine "poaching" an egg in only an inch of water. I do love eggs poached in milk with Lawry's Seasoned Salt, then served on a toasted English muffin.

[alkapal]

caroline, lawrey's seasoned salt works so well on eggs, doesn't it? it also is perfect on cottage cheese with summer tomatoes.

[buttertart]

Hooray you're back! Missed you, alka girl!

[alkapal]

thank you, buttertart! i missed you, too.

[buttertart]

You're OK, I hope?

[alkapal]

i'll email you at your address in the profile.

[buttertart]

Great, looking forward to hearing from you.

[hill food]

you've all left out the layer of fried scrapple (ok spam in a pinch)

[weewah]

A friend of mine provided at request, a hasenpfeffer recipe for a local publication. He listed ingredients in order from largest to smallest, and as a joke he wrote the first ingerient as: "one large rabbit - dead". That's just how they printed it. I still keep a copy of that; we really cracked up.

[juliefischer]

Not sure if it's a "gaffe", but this one made me laugh. A Chinese restaurant in Chelsea, NYC has anecdotes next to certain dishes to explain why they're special. One reads, "Before she died, this was Princess Diana's favorite dish." ...Yah, the "before" part kind of goes without saying.

[jumpingmonk]

Yesterday I was in Flushing's Chinatwon and at Fortune House in, I couldn't help noticing that one of the English items listed on the board was "beef trip" . I know they meant "tripe" but for a moment I speculated on whether the owners/cooks of the place had come to this country from China via Pnom Peh, and had piced up a few technique from the pizza parlors who make the infamous "happy pizza" (basically the pizza equivalent of hash browinies).

[alkapal]

you mean that ain't oregano on that happy pizza?

[hye]

Surati Farsan Mart's online menu for their dine-in is good for the most part except for this interesting item:
http://www.suratifarsan.com/ProductDe...

"Special Instructions: Dry Clean Only"

[alkapal]

ha ha -- except...even dry cleaning probably wouldn't work on that chole stain! darned turmeric! ;-).

[aliris]

Years ago at a spicy-chicken fast food shack in Hyde Park south of downtown Chicago, Harold's had an infamous sign: NO | dogs eating bicycles -- the last three words ran underneath each other as if a column all of which were intended to be prefaced by the word "no". But it all somehow came out as if bicycle-eating dogs were prohibited from the store. Very funny.

Years later I returned to see if the place was as good as I remembered and I was very saddened to see that following a remodel they'd updated the sign to be more grammatical. Very sad. The chicken was still good, but not as good as a hungry, bleary-eyed 17 yo might have thought either....

[smartie]

last week in a restaurant in Israel we saw on the menu

'fried calamari on a bed of oven roasted aborigine'. The Hebrew was a bed of eggplant so we guessed they meant aubergine.

[Paulustrious]

Not the menu, but posted on the door of a restaurant in Kendall, Miami...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13432837...

[rockycat]

As a Crohn's Disease patient I find that sign just plain effin' hilarious.
Been there, done that - unfortunately.

[jumpingmonk]

from the appetizer section of a middle eastern menu which evidently forgot an "m"

"fresh garlic humus"

(for those who don't garden, humus is the decayed organic part of soil (the stuff the plants actually use to grow)

on a realted note I cant recally HOW many times I've seen "Hunan" (in Chinese) Typo it't way to "Human". My favortie is the place that wrote across its menu "Our chef's are acclaimed experts at preparing and cooking human." Maybe that place that said "We serve people like you as good food" wasn't kidding................ Now I'm a bit worried that the pork in my meals is the "long" kind.

[alkapal]

ah, "to serve man."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudBfR...
"the cycle of going from dust to dessert."

[foodsnob14]

A Chinese restaurant in PA near my husband went to college was called Lung Fung...he was never tempted to stop in.

[jumpingmonk]

Oh yes that, Bonus fact (from a foodie point of view) in the orginal Damon Knight story, the Kanamit (the aliens) rather than being the bulbous headed aliens of the TV show, resembled humanoid pigs.

[jumpingmonk]

oh and then this little ditty (always made me laugh)

http://dammitja.net/backslash/text/mf...

[RonfromLaos]

At a restaurant in Phuket - "fried crap"

[KaimukiMan]

was it fried crab or fried carp?

[Parigi]

This thread has become so long. I have actually mentioned the crap issue in Thailand earlier. Your question is a good one. Sometimes it's carp (once in Changmai); other times crab (once in Hua Hin). Never was it crap.
You just have to take your chances...

[Leonardo]

http://www.engrish.com/2010/02/as-usu...
The "Door to the Women's Room" is the most expensive dish. Must be some restroom.
"Takes on the Young Surface": age discrimination on the menu?

[BobB]

I'd be willing to bet "Door to the Women's Room" is supposed to be some sort of aphrodisiac or male performance enhancer. Hence the cost, and the name.

[buttertart]

Don't think so - "Door..." says lu rou mian, noodles with a particular style of meat sauce. Not as far as I know a noodle version of Viagra - just a totally off-the-wall translation. "Takes on the young surface" is danzi mian, basket noodles (noodles that are warmed up in boiling water in a metal basket scoop and topped with various things. Another kooky one.

[BobB]

Oh, well. Maybe if it were translated as "Little blue pill".... ;-)

[buttertart]

But then you might have to eat it in twin bathtubs holding hands while looking at a sunset. What is up with that?

[comestible]

Our local Sri Lankan place has a Sunday buffet. But instead of writing "All You Can Eat" the menu reads, "Eat As Much As You Can."

Years ago, after a meal in a Mission St. Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, I realized I'd left my umbrella at my table. I came back to the restaurant later in the day, and asked if I could have my umbrella. "Si." And then the server went back into the kitchen. Minutes later, no umbrella, so I asked again, "Where's my umbrella?" The answer this time was, "Si, it's cooking."

[Parigi]

"Eat As Much As You Can."

Reminds me of THE classic. Wine list for a restaurant in Switzerland: "our wines leave you nothing to hope for."

[bushwickgirl]

Ha, good one.

Better nothing to hope for than nothing to live for.

[eclecticsynergy]

Miss Piggy- "Never eat more than you can lift."

[BobB]

Or B. Kliban, Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head.

[buttertart]

I love adore and worship Kliban, who is also the best cat cartoonist of all time. "Frequently mistaken for a meatloaf."

[BobB]

Yup. My favorite of his was one that hung on the bulletin board at my desk years ago when I was a technical writer,as it was so apropos, and it's even food-related. It showed four drawings of figs, and the captions under them read, Fig. 1, Fig 2, Fig. 3...

[buttertart]

Lovely. Shame he's gone. (Cat one - cat staring into corner. What's cat thinking? Thought bubble above head showing the corner.)

[tracylee]

Hahaha, I think of that one all the time with my cats! My other faves are the boneless chicken ranch and morning face.

[Meann]

Not from a menu, but a largish supermarket in Chinatown last week: all the fresh ducks' feet were labeled "romiane lettuce."

[TexSquared]

Chinese supermarket in Toronto had the following sign near a certain yellow seed on the cob we know and love: CORNS

[alkapal]

i used to have me a corns on these here feet! http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_A3CZmkLo5mw...

[alkapal]

i can't recall if this has been mentioned, but it's a winner: http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order/

i want some cowboy leg beautiful pole with retchup, please. oh, and a side of domestic life beef immerses cabbage.

for my nourishing dessert, i think i'll have the doublle-boiled forest frog -- or the rock sugar braises the papaya; it's so hard to choose.

before we go, i'd like to order a take-out of pizza Lthick mordacity.

~~~~~~~~
the site has lots of fun posts. look here for some funny food (and other) products: http://www.rahoi.com/2006/01/now-with...

[bushwickgirl]

Rock sugar braised papaya trumps boiled forest frog anyday.

[alkapal]

no, it's "rock sugar braises the papaya" -- a superior dish.

as to the frog, i still love the monty python skit about crunchy frog (which i may have mentioned upthread). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy6uLfermPU
(only the finest baby frogs....) http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketche...

[bushwickgirl]

Joking-
Hard to image a rock sugar braising anything, but I would consume the outcome, no sweat. I like the rock sugar soaks rye version, had that?
I'm not getting (and maybe not suppose to) the pizza Lthick mordacity. Biting, sharp or sarcastic pizza? Come to think of it, we have quite a bit of that here in NYC.
I guess that's why it's amusing menu gaffes.

[alkapal]

ha! good one b-girl!

[grayelf]

This whole tangent just has me playing "Rockpapersugar" in my head but which one wins??

[buttertart]

Mmm....crunchy frog, heap good! One of the best MPs: rivaled only by the bicycle trip through North Cornwall - "...and my Crunchie bar was only moderately impaired" "Does your lovely daughter like Tizer, then?" and the Science Fiction Sketch - extraterrestrial blancmanges and a Scotsman duking it out at Wimbledon. Inspired madness.
Chinese menu gaffes result largely from someone sitting down with a Chinese-English dictionary and little or no knowledge of English, just picking an English word that seems to fit. Some of them are wilder than others - rock sugar braises papaya is crystal sugar-simmered papaya in the original. And the frog, you really don't want to know about (frog "plaster" better "mist"aka eggs)...sometimes not really frog, soaked basil seeds that are much like them.
Double-cooked frog eggs in coconut juice, heap good!

[buttertart]

Just to be a prig about this, the website guy should try translating things into Chinese with the aid of an English-Chinese dictionary and see what he comes up with.

[jumpingmonk]

another set of classics I found from an old menu in dresden

Limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in shape of finger.
Roast duck let loose.
Rashers beaten up in country people style

Note an uncle of mine said he saw something similar to the last one on a menu in the former USSR in the 1950's, except there it was a Chicken Cultlet "Beaten up, in the manner of a peasant"

[buttertart]

Nice...the last has a whiff of Mad magazine parody!

[alkapal]

>>>>Chicken Cultlet "Beaten up, in the manner of a peasant"<<<

golly gee, jumpingmonk, you made me guffaw with that one!

"oh yes, madam, we beat the cutlets just like we beat the peasants! " hahahahaha.

[jumpingmonk]

from a translated chinese cookbook, whose transaltor appears to have either made a typo or gotten a very bad transaltion dictonary (I hope!)

"First, wash and rape the sweet potato.........."

[Parigi]

O groan. The cookbook translator must have confused English and French. Râper means to shred.

[thew]

it's so much nicer when the sweet potato consents

[buttertart]

Re "frog plaster"- Come to think of it, not eggs, sperm!
Damn editing duplication!!!

[alkapal]

gives new meaning to the phrase "i got plastered last night."

[foodiesnorth]

I almost split a gut sitting here in the LAS airport waiting for my much delayed aircraft...my only contributions (from memory) come from a) Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada's Siniktarvik Hotel..Chocolate Mouse (which given the state of the place MAY not be a misprint) and b) the "goat droppings" listed in the English version of a Reims France menu. I posted this previously and was advised it was a very fine product indeed!

[jumpingmonk]

"goat droppings may me a mistranslation of "crottin" (the cheese); that literally means "turd"

[foodiesnorth]

Actually it was "droppings of goat" listed on the menu my SO reminds me and yes I found out later it was a form of cheese...lol

[jumpingmonk]

Well, Crottin means "dropping", and crottins the cheese are goat milk so you can see where they might have gotten the idea.

[watercress]

What a fun topic.
I just saw a sign in an asian produce place out here in the stix for "Poburrano Peppers"

[nsenada]

I just saw a menu listing a rabbit dish that contained "rabbi mousse"

[alkapal]

oy vey!

[Paulustrious]

Cooked in a deep fat friar.

[nsenada]

with Old Monk reduction

[small h]

Yikes. Sounds like a milchig/fleischig mix - traferama!

[nsenada]

They really need to clarify this - a non-dairy foam would probably be OK...

[rockycat]

A little off topic, but one congregational contract I was asked to read over clearly discussed the "Rabbit's" salary and terms of employment. I conjured up some very interesting images and no small amount of poorly stifled giggles.

[anakalia]

Every so often in France, I see a bad English menu translation that says "Salad with corn, tomato, lawyer, carrot."

avocat = avocado OR lawyer in French. Whoops.

And this one may not really be a mistake, but my husband and I were recently at a restaurant in France and we didn't know the word "biche" which was the special of the day. The waitress, who spoke a little English, must have looked in a dictionary because she told us, very tentatively, that it was "doooooww."
We were so confused, and all three started doing pantomimes, or asking questions like, "Is it in a forest?" "Is it big?" She made antlers and then we figured out it was some sort of venison. And THEN it all made sense.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but in English, do we really differentiate between a doe and a deer on a menu? I've never seen "doe."

[alkapal]

i've seen "venison."
~~~~~
come to think of it, i don't know if my nephew ever shoots a doe -- only bucks.

[rockycat]

The Spouse prefers bringing down smaller does. There's more testosterone-laden glory in taking down a large buck but for eating, the Spouse believes the meat of young does is more tender and makes for a better meal.

[alkapal]

makes sense. i'm going to ask my nephew next time i see him. (and he does have a wall of glory, and this time of year they get santa hats).

[KaimukiMan]

would it be off subject to get a picture of that?

[StriperGuy]

It's only recently that bagging female deer was legal in most northeastern states in the U.S. It used to be legal only to bag stags. But the population exploded so badly now they are all fair game as they say.

[visciole]

I had a similar experience... the waiter told us it was "la femme" of the deer. Ha-ha! I've never seen a menu in the U.S. differentiate between male and female venision, but the French are on a loftier food plane altogether....

By the way, I agree with the spouse of Rockycat below. The doe is better.

[jumpingmonk]

I know I'm going to be crucified for even asking it, but how about faun? is that better still?

Speaing of funny mistransations someone I met in Chinatown (while waiting for one of my food orders told me a great one) apprently a friend of his (whose knowledge of Chinese cusine was not all that deep got a job at a more "ethnic" and "high end" (read "more that basic American") Chinese resturant transalting thier menu into English. One of the dishes on the menu was XO prawns (prawns with XO sauce) unfamilar with XO saucem he proceeded to translate it as "Prawns with Hugs and Kisses"!

[alkapal]

at least in florida, specifically, it is prohibited to take spotted fawn deer or swimming deer http://myfwc.com/docs/RecreationActivities/Hunt_2009-10_RegulationsHandBook.pdf

"""Identifying Does and Fawns"" http://www.huntingpa.com/Aging%20deer...

[rockycat]

Yes, in most areas taking a fawn is illegal. A faun, however, is another story altogether.

[bushwickgirl]

A very distinctive difference, I might add, if you could find a faun to start with...

[jumpingmonk]

In an odd reverse (in that the typo makes the dish sound better, not worse) a lot of Chinatown menus I've seen write Dungeness (as in crab) as "Dungless" I want to say "I sure as hell HOPE so, I don't want to eat crab with dung."

[jecolicious]

At one of those quick turn and burns that serve rice bowls in the Taiwan night markets:

Chicken Bowel.

[BobB]

The scary part - in a Taiwan street market, that might not have been a typo.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Just the contrary: the non-typo case in a Tawanese street market would probably mean some delicious treat.

[StriperGuy]

Precisely.

[JungMann]

Courtesy of Midtown Lunch, another product mislabelling.
http://midtownlunch.com/2009/12/10/i-...

[StriperGuy]

Ouch, poor Carla.

[soupkitten]

i think this is absolutely hysterical. calamari will always = carla marie for me now-- thanks!

[KaimukiMan]

oh..im so dense, thank you soup, even after looking at the pic I never made the translation to calamari. yep, carla marie it is from this day hence, enunciated clearly when ordering.

[Parigi]

How can I forget the seafood restaurant - and a very good one - in Milbrae (SF bay area) called Fook Yuen?

[KaimukiMan]

we have one in HNL as well... on a previous post someone said translation means something like beautiful garden (or something like that) and it was culturally insensitive to ridicule the name.

Seems to me that there was some cultural blindness to naming it that.

After all, I would not name a water-front restaurant in Pusan the Ship's Pal, which would approximate closely what the restaurant in Milbrae did. Or maybe I should and put a patent on the name. (no... ship's pal does not come close to "beautiful garden" in Korean)

[Parigi]

In Thailand I have seen "roast crap" on several menus in different restaurants. Gets more confusing than that: sometimes I got crab. Other times I got carp. (Never got crap.)

Years ago in a café near the Louvre in Paris, the menu boasted "roach beef sandwich".

In one of my fave Chinese restos in Paris, one of the specialties is said to be "the chef's kidney". Same thing in the French menu: "les rognons du chef".

None of your Chinese menu finds can compare with the machine-translated menus in mainland China. In China, fried noodle somehow has been translated as "f**k noodle" on the menu of thousands of restaurants; now it has become a standard translation. AM NOT KIDDING.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaming/70761148/
This is a real treasure:
http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-ta...

[jumpingmonk]

I've seen Fu Kan fried rice written often as..... well you can guess. The last time I tried I tried to order it (from a waiter unfamialr with their meu) I felt like I was doing a bad Jack Nicolson impression!

Speaking of impressions It's been mentioned ealier but I've always wondered just what is in "fried rice from hell". Is it very spicy, or did some Chinese resturanteur just really love Richard Lewis?

[Paulustrious]

Did you notice that the Chinese script for the ginger dip looked remarkably like f**k ?

[Leonardo]

I've seen "Main Curse" on a few Thai menus.

http://www.engrish.com/2009/12/its-fun-to-speculate-what-you-will-get/
"Barbecue Speculation", "Explosion Belly", "It seems Honey", "Coke Fried Beef".

http://www.engrish.com/2009/12/what-kind-of-business-hotel/
"His Wife Juice"

And my favorite: http://www.engrish.com/2009/11/we-got...
"Calzone Funghi Ham: Derived from Italian, trousers, topped with ham and like a dumping."

[sganarelle]

My favorite of all time was at a Hunanese Restaurant in Suzhou (just West of Shanghai). The glossy menu complete with Chinese and English names had one dish called: "Chicken with stir fried f**kness" (naturally, this was mougu, and therefore "fungus". They have since changed the menu.

[Parigi]

Hilarious. (And your nom de guerre is excellent.)

[RetiredChef]

Delicious Stakes

Hunger Steak

Served with Wild Lice.

Juicy balls with milky cream

Boneless T-Bone Steak

Holland days sauce – this was on a special board so we told the manager it was spelt wrong and it was one word. He changed it to Hollandays sauce

Fresh locally grown Raspberries (It was February in Portland)

In a Thai restaurant
“Spiciness: on a scale of 1 to 1”

In Chinese Restaurants
Your choice of chicken, beef, or dork.
Tea Smoking Duck

In a Mexican Restaurant
Try one of our bloody mary’s a perfect cure for your hamover.

And over Thanksgiving weekend in Washington DC on a menu board “Tuna Tar-Tar.”

[jumpingmonk]

The first Chinese one is even funnier if you know the actual, by the dictionary definition of "dork". Guess they aren't kidding when they say the chinese use EVERY part of the animal!

[Paulustrious]

Fu Yao, Toronto. This is a supermarket rather than a restaurant. It sells frozen Cow's Penis.

[KaimukiMan]

recipes?

[buttertart]

It - or at least "bull's pizzle" as more accurately/quaintly named on menus in Taiwan - is served in soup among other ways. Have eaten it once, not terribly tasty, texture about what you would imagine (or probably don't want to).

[alkapal]

fo' shizzle, m' pizzle! *_*

[buttertart]

You slay me, dear Alka! Fo' shiz.

[Paulustrious]

http://britishfood.about.com/od/intro...

[haggisdragon]

The other evening, I was at an Ethiopian restaurant that listed 'bad weiser' as one of its beer selections. I enjoyed that one.

[linguafood]

It doesn't strike me as a misnomer '-)

[kubasd]

I think they got it exactly right :-)

[bushwickgirl]

When I'm having a bad day, I re-read this post and everything in the world is much brighter again.
Sign on the side of the building of my favorite pizza place, years ago in CT: Parking for costumes only. Come in and have a cool wine or beer.

Guess they couldn't spare the refrigeration.

[BobB]

Reminds me of a place in Somerville, MA called DiTuccis. I'm not sure if it's still there, but the sign in front used to read,

. . DiTuccis . .
Parking in rear

It always cracked me up, but you have to know a little Yiddish (Yiddish tuchis = the sittable part of one's anatomy) to get the joke.

[bushwickgirl]

Yes, I knew that and it's very funny.
This particular thread just cracks me up over and over.

[visciole]

My all-time favorite, seen on a sandwich board listing specials outside an upper west side diner:

Monte Crisco Sandwich

Mmmmm! Too bad about the trans-fat ban, there goes their biggest seller!

[weezycom]

Not the menu, but the sign outside a chinese restaurant that had just opened (in a former, remodeled gas station): We services cocktails.

I always imagined a martini on the lift

[jumpingmonk]

Just noticed one on a menu today. While trying to place an order to 88 reach house. I noiced that while most of the versions of New Years rice cake were indeed listed as "new Years rice cake" the version with the shredded pork (which was in a sepereate area on the menu has is miswritten "New York Rice Cake".

[JungMann]

Not quite a menu but one of the Chinese butchers I frequent has a freezer full of partridges all labeled "Patrick." Funny, but understandable. The green grocer across the street, however, has trumpet mushrooms labeled as "Fresh Prince."

[linguafood]

I don't get it.

[buttertart]

Patrick is cute. The mushrooms are prince mushrooms (huangzi gu) in Chinese so Fresh Prince is understandable and amusing. (I was once asked by the produce guy in our supermarket for the English name of Swiss chard. He apparently thought I said "chart" - probably because chard is not a terribly common word - and Swiss chart it is labeled to this day.)

[JungMann]

That is a fascinating coincidence. We thought it very unlikely these grocers had enough familiarity with pop culture to be referencing Will Smith but simply couldn't figure out how they went from trumpet mushroom to Fresh Prince!

[buttertart]

I'm still stuck on Patrick, would appear to be a transcribed mishearing of partridge. It kills me!

[aussiewonder]

I'll never forget seeing this on a roadside sandwich board in Baltimore when I first moved there:
Why not give your Mother Crabs this Mother's Day??

[StriperGuy]

Please tell me it was a bit of a joke, please ;-).

[KaimukiMan]

Maybe not quite a gaffe, but a new restaurant here has an interesting section on their menu

"Himalayan Seafood"

gives one pause doesn't it. (think geography people, geography)

oh the food there is really good.
http://www.himalayankitchen.net/docum...

ps: as with most of these, the intent is not to ridicule anyone, just to get a chuckle out of what happens when they don't quite get the message across in the menu.

[alkapal]

i've been enjoying the engrish.com site recently.

anyhow, there is a local pizza chain that has "proscuitto" on it's painted overhead hanging menu, and it drives me nuts so that every time i'm there i tell them that it is spelled wrong. i tell them, "that spells "pro-squeet-o". then they look at me, and they have an expression like a very unconcerned bovine just waiting for the salt lick to be put out in the barn. oh...never mind.....

oh heck, just give me the mescaline salad, please.

[linguafood]

OMG, I HATE, hate, hate it when "Italian" restos can't spell prosciutto right. How effing hard can it be, people?

[jumpingmonk]

couple more
(once again with Chinese) there are a couple of dishes wich describe parts of the dish as "old". Usally they mean "old fashioned or in the "old", classic style (Old Shanghai rice cakes might be a good example of that (that dish itself took some courace to get around to trying since being a westerner I'm used to imagining rice cakes as being dry hoceky puck like things you eat when you trying to seriosly cut calories and had difficuly imaginging them as something that would make a nice stir fry dish (FTI of anyone who hasnt eaten them, the rice cakes in question are more like very thick rice nooodles (you also see them lised as new years cake and they're analagous to Korean rice cakes and Phillipine putto) and are in fact addictively delicious (Old Shaghai Style usally means stir fried with shredded pork and preserved cabbage) However there are two that don't fit this model I've bumped into. One place serves sometihng called "chicken stewed with the old ginger" which I think means with ordinary ginger as opposed to the young white kind that some duck recipes rely on. Its not half bad though I have discovered best left as an "eat in" dish only (this has nothing to do with mess, its just that they tend to chop the chicken up with a cleaver into bit sized peices if you do takeout (to it it in the container) and so you end up fishing hundereds of razor sharp bone fragments out of you mouth) the sconed is a place in Midtown Manhattan that severs what they call "old duck soup" the part that makes me giggle with this is that I think they mean it in the sense of "used" I really do think they make the stock by taking all of the bones and scraps lefover from the Peking ducks people ordered as well as the shredded duck dishes and tossing them in the stock kettle. The only thing I wonder about is whether there also tossing in the leftovers of the duck that people are actually leaving on thier plates (i.e. the gnawed bones)(I know I migh do something like that at home, but I suspect you cant do that in a public resturaunt) Great soup BTW.

and to conclud a sigh I saw once in a resturant that amde me ownder if we were going to be doing improv theatre, "please wait to be the seat"

[shaogo]

A common error in the Sichuan restaurants we dine at is to translate beef tendon as "beef tender." I can only imagine puzzled diners expecting a tenderloin and instead getting a plate full of what can be described as gristle!

[jumpingmonk]

especially when you consider that, at least in the US a "chicken tender"" is a kind of breaded chiken nugget.

One of my faviorties was a NYC midtown Chinese resturaunt called "Hsin Yu" just off Dag Plaza (long since closed) I never actually ate there (given that fact that it's ultimate closing seems to have been by the Heath Deaperment, that may not be a bad thing) but I did once pick up one of thier menus and I remember two funny mispellings. The minor one was "Lobster and style" (I'm assuming they meant "any") the Major one was something called "Three Muskiest with vegetables" (may they meant "fragrant"

I asl remember some resuturant somewhre whose menu proudly boasted "we serve people like you as good food"

I'm also suprised that no-one mentioned the Chinese alcoholic drink Pingba Jaojui with its slogan "High smell with good smell, sweet be after drunk, with long smell" or the plese that offer Scoth whiskey "made from Scotland's finest grapes"

[carbocat]

your post has more typos than the menus you're talking about :P lol

[LabRat]

Not really a menu gaffe per se, but the DriectTV guide description for an episode of Rick Bayless' "Mexico: One Plate at a Time" indicated that he would be making "Crap Salpicon".

[greygarious]

For some chuckles to relieve Thanksgiving stress, here are some beauties, collected by Richard Lederer, that appeared last spring in the Mensa Bulletin:
WHORES DOVER AND SOUP:
Gritty Balloons inSoup
Barely Soup
Limpid Red Beet Soup with Cheesy Dumplings in the Form of a Finger
Fisherman's Crap Soup
Soap of the Day
Flesh Soup
SALAD:
Salad, a Firm's Own Make
Groin Salad
MEAT:
Buff Steak
Gut Casserole
Warm Little Dogs
Calf Pluck
Pork with Fresh Garbage
Boiled Sheep
Special Big Leg
Meat Dumping
Beef Rashers Beaten Up in the Country People's Fashion
Tortilla with Chili, Cheese, Sour Cream and Glaucoma
Hambugger
Dreaded Veal Cutlets
Sir Loin Steak
Sour Pig's Fore Shank
Live Wurst
Amiable and Sour Pork
POULTRY:
Lightly Flowered Breast of Chicken
Bosom of Chicken
Frayed Chicken
Utmost Chicken with Smashed Pot
Sweat from the Turkey
Foul Breast
Utmost of Chicken Fried in Bother
Hen Fried with Butler
Goose Barnacles
Roaasted Duck Let Loose
SEAFOOD:
Muscles in Sailor's Sauce
Dead Shrimp on Warm Vegetables
Sea Blubber in a Spicy Sauce
Drunken Prawns in Spit
Shrimp in a Casket
MISCELLANEOUS OR UNIDENTIFIABLE;
Muffled Frog Rumps
Pasta Fungus
Spaghetti Fongoole
Slugs in Spit
Bird Bowels
Withered Peper Paste Sauce
Toes with Butter and Jam
Cold Shredded Children
Fried Hormones
Fried Convoluted Watch
Anti Pasta
Baked Zit
Spleen Omelet
Children Sandwich
Eight Treasurers
Buttered Saucepans
Mixed Boils to Pick
Full Coarse Meal
VEGETABLES:
Priest Fainted Eggplant Dish
Muchrooms
Backed Beans
Mushed Potatoes
Potato Cheeps
Fried Rice from Hell
Cabitch
Raped Carrots
French Fried Ships
Mad Apples
DESSERTS:
Fire Pudding with Hard Sauce
Honey Do
Straqwberry Crap
Rice Kooky
Lady's Finger
Chocolate Sand Cookies
Pie Tongue
Tart of the House
Pustache Ice Cream
Chocolate Mouse Tort
Finest Moldy Cheese
BEVERAGES:
White Whine
Fried Milk
Turkey Coffee
Special Cocktails for Women with Nuts
Flesh Juice
Lemon Jews
Garlic Coffee
PHRASES AND ADS:
"Mr. Zheng and his fellow workers like to meet you and entertain you with their hostility and unique cooking techniques."
"As for the tripe served here, you will be singing its praises to your grandchildren on your deathbed."
"Our wines leave you nothing to hope for."
"You will be able to eat all you wish until you are fed up!"
"Our establishment serves tea in a bag like mother."
"Guests are advised that all fruits served here have been washed in water passed by the management."
"You are invited to visit our restaurant where you can eat the Middle East Foods in a European ambulance."
"Teppan Yaki -- Before your cooked right eyes."

[StriperGuy]

Well I will only quibble about two of them:

Goose Barnacles are a VERY pricey Spanish delicacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_ba...

And Priest Fainted Eggplant Dish is a literal translation of a classic Italian dish.

[rockycat]

Actually, "The Priest Fainted" is Imam Bayaldi (or Bayildi), a Turkish dish that translates to "the imam fainted." Supposedly he fainted because his wife's eggplant dish tasted so good.

[StriperGuy]

Hah, funny maybe I made up the Italian part. Turkish sounds more like it...

[soupkitten]

i think you may be thinking of strozzapretti-- literally, "priest stranglers"--an italian pasta?

[StriperGuy]

Hmmmm, that's a good one.

I thought it had to do with a priest fainting though. Even asked an Italian friend and they said no fainting priest dishes that they knew of...

[alkapal]

imams faint.
priests get strangled.

for some other funny italian stuff, watch conan and mario in this cooking demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6qCC1...

[Sam Fujisaka]

There is always strozzapreti, "choke the priest" (spinach and ricotta dumplings).

[linguafood]

Those are malfatti, no? Of course, any misshapen pasta could be called malfatti. Strozzapetri is just a pasta shape AFAIK, not necessarily spinach and ricotta dumplings.

[linguafood]

I always heard it was due to the insane amount of garlic used in that dish...

[dump123456789]

Fried milk is not a drink or a mistake, but rather a dessert in which a block of custard is coated and deep fried.

[StriperGuy]

Agree, I almost flagged that one myself.

[alkapal]

my dad would joke about "horse doovers." ;-).

[flourgrrrl]

I'm afraid I am responsible for my most memorable menu gaffe. As an American chef just beginning my job at a country house hotel in Scotland I put an Alsatian onion tart on the menu - meaning of course an onion tart made in the style of the Alsace region of France. What I didn't know at the time was that in Scotland an Alsatian is a German Shepherd! And we all know how the Brits are about their pets; the UK had a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals before it had a similar organization protecting children.

It took me ages to figure out why that damned tart wasn't selling!

[soxlover]

OMG, I'm sick from laughing! I work in a restaurant with a charming server from China who tells customers we have "prima ribba". She said when she travelled back to China with her American husband his favorite part of the trip was reading all the badly translated signs. I was puzzled recently when she kept saying that everyone needed to correct the wine menus (what exactly was wrong?). Then I realized she meant they needed to be gathered up and returned to the host station!

[adamshoe]

Braised short ribs served with over roasted vegetables...

[nkeane]

admittingly i did not read all the posts in this thread, so if this is a duplicate I appologize!

My friends and I make a game out of this when we try a new place. we all open the menu at the same time, and the person who finds a grammatical or typographical error first doesnt have to chip in on the tab!! also, i dont think we have ever not been able to find something!!!LOL.....

[hill food]

nkeane: I like this game.

[SamuelAt]

A very good and authentic Greek restaurant I have been to offers "Leg of Lamp". I recommend it with the lemon potatoes.

[eclecticsynergy]

"Leg of Lamp" was featured in the movie A Christmas Story...

[JenBoes]

We had lunch at a Thai restaurant recently with "pud thai" on the menu.

[Jetgirly]

I saw a really cute sign outside a restaurant in Barcelona: "English is espoken here."

[DianneYYC]

In Calgary in the "yellow pages" about 3 years ago advertising one of the best restaurants. It had "Valley Parking" I love that.

[roxlet]

I just got back from 5 weeks in Cairo, and I had some good chuckles over skewered English on some menus. Here are some examples that made me laugh:
Tomatoes with old cheese
Veal warp by paper
Fried viagra (also available grilled with hot sauce, though presumably hot sauce is optional with viagra)
Friskies fajita sandwich
and last, but not least:
Chicken Sawerma Fart meal

[Catskillgirl]

LOL at these! Classic. Thank you! The Friskies fajita sandwich still has me stymied.

[alkapal]

yeah, i'm thinkin' about friskies fajitas, too!

[cbrunelle]

A very late response- they actually mean the viagra sandwiches. They're shrimp something sandwiches, and it has been explained to me that shrimp is considered an aphrodisiac by Egyptians. I find it absolutely hilarious to hear an extremely modest, veiled woman order a viagra sandwich.

Another funny Egypt one: there's a fast food chain called Gad, but half the items on their menu are spelled 'God.' So you can order God's Favorite Dishes, God's French Fries, and, the absolute best, God's Viagra Sandwiches.

[roxlet]

Yes, we love Gad, and usually say that "Gad is great!" Do you read Arabic? I don't think I ever saw a menu in English at Gad. It's Egyptian fast food at its best -- fuul, tameya, and schwerma.

[Hot Chocolate]

In Beijing.
resto owner used a free on line website to translate his restaurant name into english to be more western friendly for the olympics. So he had a new sign that said the english name of his restaurant: "Translate server error"

[Leonardo]

Is that an urban myth? I've heard this several times, yet have not seen a photo. Curious.

[Peg]

see...
http://failblog.org/page/13/

[TampaAurora]

Oh thank you for the laugh!

[why_itsme]

There's a small burger stand in my neighboor hood. They have so many mistakes it's just laughable. The two that stand out in my mind right now are "Chilly" and "Chilly Cheese Fries". Why would I want cold fries?

[Sherri]

Years ago, the Subic Bay Officers' Club in the Phillipines had a Wednesday night special featuring ROAST BEEP for pibe pibty-pibe ($5.55).

[pickychicky1979]

a local mexican place has a pork shop plate on their drive-thru menu

[JenBoes]

I've got one from a wine dinner I attended the other night. On the menu, it said the third course consisted of ricotta gnocci with braised duck, bee pollen, an assortment of other ingredients and "BEE BOMB." I and the other seven inquisitive souls at my table went poking through the dish in search of the intriguing "BEE BOMB." It turned out to be a mispelling for "bee balm."

[greygarious]

There's a new Japanese place here offerring an entree whose ingredients include "cold duck wheat noodles". I discounted the cheap sparkling wine right away, positing that chilled cooked duck was part of the dish. Several minutes later I realized it's "cold buckwheat noodles". The bento box luncheon special means "choose any one..." but says "choke any one". I'm still trying to figure out "Negi-Hamachi Yellowtail, seditions" and "calm soup"....

[Catskillgirl]

One would need calm soup after the seditious fish! Love the duck wheat noodles as well.

[KaimukiMan]

better duck wheat than duckweed

[queencru]

One of my favorite Chinese restaurants used to have a yummy dish called Snow White and the Sever Dwarves. Luckily there were no severed heads in the dish.

[caliking]

Seen on a Thai menu in Chicago:

listed under appetizers - "Poo Thong"

[Ted in Central NJ]

And, of course, there is the old Chinese menu favorite:

Triple Clown

I just wonder if they considered the creepiness factor before employing those clowns.

[grayelf]

"Seen on a Thai menu in Chicago: listed under appetizers - "Poo Thong""

I think Poo = Crab in Thai... but still pretty funny for English speakers.

I often wonder what non-Spanish speakers think when a reviewer of a Mexican resto waxes poetic about the lovely dish of mole on the menu :-).

Our favourite menu gaffe was at a cavernouse Chinese restaurant in Mississauga (west of Toronto) that we frequented for cart-service dimsum. Once we perused the dinner menu for fun and discovered that they had well over a dozen dishes of tenderlion, prepared many different ways. Always thought the king of beasts would be a little tough, but apparently not here :-). We've referred to it as tenderlion ever since.

[carbocat]

oh my god. I would have died

[jumpingmonk]

I'd think they migh have gotten one that broke out of the zoo and was lost, but to make these kind of menu mistakes someone in the kitchen probaby had a few to many, and as everyone know if you'd had a few to many its really hard to wok a strayed lion.

[QSheba]

"Hacked chicken in assorted flavor" "honey baby ribs"

[litchick]

A few Chinese restaurants (mostly Sichuan or northern style) in Boston feature shrimp or pork with "stumble eggs." I love it. MrLit and I now exclusively refer to scrambled eggs this way. (Makes sense, I suppose. You're just walkling along with an armful of eggs, and... oops!)

[greygarious]

My term for scrambled eggs is "gegs".

[KaimukiMan]

conversation at a restaurant for breakfast,
three of us, one an exchange student:

me: "Rick, what are you going to order?"
Rick: "What is scramble mind?"
me: "what? where is it on the menu?"
Rick: "no, jim says i'm scramble mind"
Jim: "I said you were scatter brained"

we all had a good laugh

[LabRat]

I'm not sure if this is a typo or not, but the menu at a restaurant we frequent said "Under sane management since 1984". If it's a typo, then I guess the same management has been in place since 1984. If not, the old management might have finally gotten their meds dialed in correctly back in '84. I pointed it out to a waitress, she just rolled her eyes and said "They're lying".

[Catskillgirl]

I had to read your post 7 times before finally seeing what you saw! It's funny how your eyes will sometimes make corrections - seeing what "should" be there, not what really is there. I'm sure the waitress was right!

[danhole]

Last night we ate at a place that had a Chocolate mouse cake. Tail not included.

[Catskillgirl]

Oh, but the tail is the best part! Good one.

[Emmmily]

I recently ordered a dish of "noodles with miced pork" at one of my favorite NY Chinatown joints. Always wondered what those mice were doing to my pork to make it taste so good...

[dump123456789]

I hope it's not what civets do to kopi luwak.

[jumpingmonk]

Well, I can't help noticing that some pork dishes in Chinatown (like the pork belly at New Yeah! Shanghai Deluxe) come with a sprinkling of "forbidden" (black) rice grains. At least I HOPE they're rice grains.

[Emmmily]

I'm just picturing them there with little tiny cleavers mincing it themselves...

[GeeBeeEmm]

The cafeteria at work advertised "Leak Soup."

[cavandre]

Not a menu gaffe, but similar incident in Westchester Co., NY.

A few years ago, a new restaurant openned in the fall of the year. In early Dec., the local paper was featuring ads for New Years' Eve in their Friday entertainment section. This restaurants ad featured their choice of entrees for that night, all in a large, bold type. One of the choices was Breast of Duck. However in the ad, the "u" in duck got changed to an "i".

The owners & the newspaper were really embarrased; however the phones won't stop ringing with reservations. The next week, the restaurant had a similar size ad in the same paper. The only copy in the ad was: "It's Breast of Duck".

[Sam Fujisaka]

Long ago in Laos there was a road sign in front of a place that said, "Snake Bar"

In the scientific literature we refer to cows produced for both meat and milk as, "Dual purpose females".

[Leonardo]

Saw a road sign in Turkey that said "Cook Yourself Eat Yourself".
It was a do-it-yourself BBQ.

[emerilcantcook]

Sweet. This reminds me another one:

There is also Cihichen [sic] Translate, one of the most amazing menu gaffes that was created in Turkinglish language. For those (many) of you who don't speak Turkish, I owe an explanation: the word "cevirme" is a homograph that both means to rotate and to translate. Here is the famous sign...

http://www.turkishenglish.com/images/...

[carswell]

Years ago, a sweet little Japanese restaurant whose dessert menu featured fly ice cream. It was only on our second or third visit that one of us screwed up his courage and ordered it. Turned out to be ice cream balls dipped in tempura batter and deep fried.

[emerilcantcook]

Recently spotted an item that included some Duck Conflict. Not sure it was a real typo, or an intended pun since the cook was the uber hipster chef Nantha Kumar, recently awarded an honorable mention for the "Best Montreal Weirdo" in our city weekly.

[Catskillgirl]

So were the ducks conflicted or fighting? That's a great one.

[emerilcantcook]

I took a better look at the menu yesterday. Actually it writes:

Conflict of Duck Penang

Even more poetic.

[smartie]

I posted earlier on this thread that I saw a Conflict of Duck on an English hotel menu. I couldn't stop laughing that evening.

[Hue]

Not A menu gaffe..but I always find this humorous

An Asian Room Service Lesson

Be Warned , you will find yourself talking "funny" for a while after reading this

This is a telephone exchange(actual?) between a hotel guest and room-service at a hotel in Asia…

Room Service(RS): "Morny. Ruin sorbees"

Guest(G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed room service"

RS; "Rye..Ruin sorbees..morny! Djewish to odor sunteen?"

G: "Uh..yes …I'd like some bacon and eggs"

RS: " Ow July Den?"

G: "What?"

RS: "Ow July Den?….pry, boy, pooch?"

G: "Oh..the eggs! How do I like them?"
"Sorry..scrambled please"

RS: "Ow July dee bayhcem….crease?"

G: "Crisp will be fine"

RS: "Kokay. An San Tos?"

G: "What?"

RS: "San tos. July san Tos?"

G: "I don't think so!"

RS: "No? Judo one toes?"

G: " I feel real bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo one toes' means."

RS: "Toes! Toes!…why djew Don Juan toes?
"Ow bow singlish mopping we bother?"

G: English Muffin!!!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast".. Yes, an English muffin will be fine."

RS: "We bother?"

G: "No… just put the bother on the side."

RS: "Wad?"

G: "I mean butter….just put the butter on the side."

RS: "Copy?"

G: "Sorry"

RS: "Copy?…Tea?…mill?…"

G: "Yes. Coffee please, and that’s all."

RS: "One Minnie. Ass ruin torino fee, strangle ache, crease bachem Tossy singlish mopping we bother honey sigh, and copy……rye?"

G: "Whatever you say"

RS: "Tendjewberrymud"

G: " You're welcome"

[dump123456789]

This reads more like someone mocking someone else's accent. It would be just as easy for me to mock some of the accents I've heard in New Jersey, Louisiana and Texas.

[buttertart]

I agree, I've been sent this a lot of times as an email and it strikes me as patronizing and unfunny (to be charitable). "Guest" should perhaps try to understand that room service person has at least a grasp of guest's language. Best not to make fun of someone speaking English with an accent, it means they know at least one more language than you do (if you're a unilingual English-speaker of course).

[KevinB]

Not really a menu gaffe, but there's a mostly Asian grocery near me that regularly advertises "Old Chickens" for sale.

[buspirone]

Saint John, New Brunswick, not really renown as a city of adventurous diners recently had a new sushi restaurant open. Of course since raw fish is quite adventurous the owners appeared to decide to ease the public by only using cooked fish in their rolls.

However the publicity in their window proudly announced "SUSHI ! - ALL COCKED MENU"

[Mothership]

At a seafood restaurant in Portugal - "Fresh Giant Crap". (Referring to a lovely stuffed crab dish...) I really wish I had taken the menu...

[thew]

there was a palce in NYC chinatown that sold various carp dishes, all labled as crap

[JenBoes]

This isn't about a menu error but a pronunciation error. We were out with a fairly large group for dinner and my friend ordered succotash. She pronounced it sue-kohe-tashie. Everybody got a laugh out of that. Of course, this is the same individual that thought czar was pronounced ceasar.

[Prav]

To be fair, caesar/czar/kaiser are etymologically related words. ;)

[carolm]

From my Daughter NO jazz fest botter water $1.00, also sweat ham.

[ddonthehill]

This is hilarious! For years my husband and I have laughed about the "Garlkick sauce" on a menu in our once favorite Chinese restaurant. To this day, we say Garlkick sauce. Can't help it.

[Caroline1]

I thought this subject was pretty much exhausted. Then I was browsling local online restaurant menus this morning looking for inspiration to either drive or cook. In the "sides" menu of Cafe Istanbul in downtown Dallas, they translate "Siyah Zeytin" (Turkish for black olives) as "Calamity Olives." Gee, and I thought Turkish-Greek relations were improving! No idea whether it's the same on the in-house menu. But that's the way it is here: http://www.cafe-istanbul.net/menu.htm

[smartie]

not a restaurant but a local nail bar has a sign on the door which says ' dogs have no permission'. Makes me chuckle.

[Paulustrious]

Bit late to post this, but you know what it's like with a resurrected thread.

I think that was the translation of Kalamata, rather than just black

[Caroline1]

hmmm... You resurect late, I respond late. A month later, I finally read this. No. Not "Kalamata." The menu is written in Turkish, and it clearly states "black olives" in Turkish (Siyah Zeytin), then seriously mistranslates it. You're right in that they probably intended "Kalamata," but the problem is that Kalamata olives are grown specifically and exclusive in Kalamata, Greece. Grow the same olive somewhere else and it's just a black olive. Or whatever else they want to call it, but Kalamata olives are grown in Kalamata. Similar to the way the French feel about Champagne. '-)

[Ted in Central NJ]

And, who can forget the restaurant menu that listed "Asparagus with Holland Days Sauce"? I was tempted to ask if I could get it with Holland Nights Sauce instead.

[alanbarnes]

You can get similar results when an English-speaking chef serves a dish with a foreign name. A seafood restaurant here in town frequently offers poke (the Hawai'ian marinated fish dish--pronounced POH-keh) as a special. But to distinguish the dish from the weed that southerners make into poke salad, or to make pronunciation clearer, or for whatever reason, the menu always lists it as "poki."

Which wouldn't be funny if poki wasn't another ancient Hawai'ian food. Dog meat, to be specific.

[southernitalian]

My favorite Thai restaurant serves a bean "threat" noodle dish!

[hill food]

Once I had "Shredded Prok"

and I think it indeed was Prok...

[Sarah]

My favorites remain "Foot to Go" and that comforting favorite "Lamp Stew." Yummm.

[Cheese Boy]

Yep, this reinforces the fact that Chinese translation is all about pronunciation. I was at a Chinese eatery once and I asked the server for pepper and received paper. At first I thought that was odd, but I then realized why. It's amazing and at times unfortunate, how so much can be lost in translation with something as simple as misspellings. (Sadly, we get a laugh at their expense).

[cassis]

Many years ago in a London restaurant known for its game dishes, my uncle inquired of the Spanish waiter, "What is in the Gamekeeper's Pie?", and the answer was "Why, gamekeeper, of course."

We managed not to laugh, and my uncle ordered it anyway.

[lost squirrel]

Oh my, you haven't seen anything yet.
Try living in Tokyo.

At my local convenience store they sell "Homo Sausages", made of fish mind you.
My all time favorite is below:
"burning condition cock skewer" yummy

[chefschickie]

hahaha, I also like the "two of them" part, very normal maybe put more speaking language.....

[egit]

I feel terrible for laughing at a lot of these...

The most puzzling and funny one that I remember was at a Korean restaurant upstate many years ago. They had some sort of beef dish with "steamed bracorie." (it wasn't a very authentic korean place). It took me most of my meal to realize they were serving it with broccoli.

It's very common in various ethnic restaurants. The ones that I end up remembering are the ones that completely stump me. Bracorie.

[Miss Needle]

This was posted recently in another thread. Absolutely hilarious -- I don't think I've seen as many mistakes as in this menu. And it gets kind adult as you approach the bottom.

http://rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order/

And then there is engrish.com that portrays English mistakes in predominantly Japanese ads and products. Here is the menu section:

http://www.engrish.com/category_index...

[Prav]

Shrimp Dumpings, at a Chinese place (Gourmet Garden) in Ann Arbor, MI.

[ImprovGal]

Dinner menus on Disney Cruise Line get posted in the morning at the Animator's Palate since it doesn't serve breakfast or lunch. On one morning of my Panama Canal cruise in 2005, I took a peek at the menu and saw that one of the soup/salad offerings that evening was "Essence of Leeches, Passion Fruit, Guava".
Someone caught the typo in time to run off new menus to hand out at dinner. However, there had been a full print run of the error menu and our server was able to smuggle out a "leeches" menu for our group to have as a keepsake.

[kimmer1850]

I used to work in a small cajun restaurant with an amazing chef. Unfortunately he was no typist and always relied too much on spell check. Thus we had "mussels with Boston logger" and "shrimp and grits in a white whine sauce." He was such a nice guy that I couldn't bring myself to tell him that his menu was just chock full of typos. Besides, everyone thought he was trying to be cute.

[whs]

How about "steamed muscles"?

[kimmer1850]

He managed not to mangle "mussels." I think that I would have corrected that one just because it is just a gross picture.

[Hue]

Locally, in Baltimore, steamed blue crabs are a must during the summer
and sometime during the summer a sign will go "STEAMED FEMALES
$20.00"...never fails to give me a chuckle

[kimmer1850]

Hey Hue,
I'm from Baltimore, too, Hon. I always get a chuckle out of "steamed females." I grew up crabbing on the Magothy River and was taught to throw the females back.

[tobycat]

At our local Japanese restuarant:

Pork Berry in Sweat Sauce

oh yum!

[chefschickie]

Allright... Not a Typo and actual Product at the Caribbean section in our local Publix : 'Cock Flavored Soup' ....... Guess it might be my mind in the gutter.....

[Michelly]

I bought several of these and are saving them for...I don't know, a bachelorette party?

[thew]

it's the steeping that's so damned painful

[Paulustrious]

It's the skinning that gets to me. And getting rid of the bone.

[thew]

once steeped and skinned, i assure you, the bone will be gone

[jgg13]

I got some once as a joke. Made for a decent enough quick snack.

[NellyNel]

AHHH!!
Yes - my mother thought "Cock Soup" was hilarious so she bought me a packet (she's 70)
I keep it dsplayed in my kictchen!

[Veggo]

The one that still cracks me up, and I'm not sure why it was on the all-you-can eat menu:
"Fat people are harder to kidnap"

[goodhealthgourmet]

ok, that's hiLArious! veggo, where did you see it?

[BobB]

On the other hand, there's the slogan of a chain of fitness centers in Hong Kong: "Because when they come, they'll eat the fat ones first!"

[penguiino101]

I got one on a set of chopsticks: "Eat your Nice Chinese Food with chkostiks. How to use: Place first chopstick between middle finger and tnurb." I can't remember the rest, but every one was cracking up!

[RGC1982]

Not a foreign language translation gaffe, but definitely a gaffe:

Kosher Hot Dog with Cheese.

[soupkitten]

along the same lines: vegan honey cake

[Leonardo]

Not a gaffe at all. The hot dog itself was produced in a manner that rendered it qualified to be certified as kosher. When people see the term "kosher hot dog" it signifies certain things pertaining to its contents, size, shape, flavor, and other standards, things that cannot be changed by what it is served with. Which is why it is a sought-after product.
Then the purveyor chose to serve it with cheese. This act certainly makes the finished dish not kosher, but it doesn't change the fact that the hot dog was produced as a kosher product.

[rubymydear]

Along those lines...

http://nancykayshapiro.livejournal.co...

[RGC1982]

Your link was hilarious! Eating Trafe for Chanukah!

Actually, I did understand, Leonardo, the intent of the menu item description. Of course they were just trying to sell the perceived higher quality of a kosher hot dog because this was not a kosher restaurant. It was just really funny because we chose to eat there with some conservative Jewish friends who keep kosher at home, but are more liberal when eating out. They laughed over the "kosher hot dog with cheese" for a good twenty minutes. It just seemed funny.

[eclecticsynergy]

Great for Hanukah?

[BobB]

That's a classic - it's from Balducci's in NYC, from 2007. Went absolutely viral at the time.

[bushwickgirl]

Now that's a GAFFE.

[hill food]

Balducci's in NYC? is this for real? even I know better.

[robinsilver]

We have a family joke about how we have to find the mistake in every new Chinese menu we see. It is kid of funny, but not surprising. Seeing as I read posts and e-mails from people who should have learned better, but did not, why should I be surprised that someone who is not American born does not pick up on an error.

[chefmurray57]

I live in Costa Rica and nearly every menu I encounter offers Chicken Gordon Blue and one even offered a Hamburger with a slice of Fried Hand on top. I love the comment about the Italian restaurant describing the Risotto served with arborio rice. Here, the Costa Ricans often do serve a side of fries with a side of rice on the same plate...pura vida..

[Merry113]

Every restaurant in Bali had Chicken Gordon Blue on it as well. My husband and I always giggled when we saw it.

[soupkitten]

"basket full of whole deep fried orcas"

[thew]

waffles manatee

[BobB]

Wow, that must be some big basket!

[StriperGuy]

I can't for the life of me figure out what the Orcas are actually supposed to be...

[emmaroseeats]

Ocra!

[StriperGuy]

Duh, of course...

[roxlet]

You mean okra? The vegetable?

[Al_Pal]

In college, the Chinese restaurant just around the corner from campus had a menu that read "We Delivery!!!!"

I was also at a Chinese restaurant in Rome where they had dishes like "lo mein with meat." Never said what kind of meat, but one of my friends was brave enough to order a dish "with meat," and it certainly didn't look like any meat I had ever eaten...

[Squint]

At a small restaurant for lunch last week, there was an item on the menu "Vegetarian Wrap with Chicken"

I thought of that this week when the Top Chef winner was tofu cooked in rendered beef fat.....

[goodhealthgourmet]

i've seen a lot of restaurants do that. typically the "chicken" [or pork, or shrimp] they're talking about is a vegetarian substitute or meat analog, but they really should specify.

[smartie]

I saw a Conflict of Duck on a hotel menu - had visions of some massive duck fight with feathers flying.

[miss_bennet]

My favourite example is not from a menu. I once saw a poster advertising a charity dinner. At the very bottom of the poster, it said:

"For rickets, call..."

No way was I going to call! Although it presents a very sad irony.. Maybe I have a sick sense of humour...

[thew]

i saw a hotel/restaurant in varanasi with a sign that read " a fine place to die" I neither ate nor stayed there

[thew]

in india on a dessert menu

"american ice cream swedishs"

took me a 1/2 hour to figure they meant sweet dishes.

not a gaffe, but there used to be a chinese place that offered "hot intestines and things"

i always wondered what the things could be, if the least nasty one the could mention were the hot intestines.....

[StriperGuy]

Hard enough to get up the courage to order tripe or chitterlings, but when it is called "hot intestines and things" gulp.

[nc213]

not from a menu, but i've seen lots of creative spellings in the restaurants I've worked in (usually from native english speakers). my favorite thing ever listed on the 86 board:

cremon glaze

took me a minute of staring at it and sounding it out in my head to figure out what the heck they meant.

[Caroline1]

Now that's funny! Someone was obviously hooked on phonics.

[caviar_and_chitlins]

You can have that for dessert after your:

Flamin' Yon

[fussycouple]

In the late 70s, a Portuguese bakery in Somerville, MA had a sign one day inside that I will never forget. I felt compelled to ask for the manager and point out that he might want to correct a sign that said,

"Fresh jewess rye from our hot ovens"

with an "ish".

[howchound]

Tigers Deli take out menu in NJ menu used to offer Corned "Beak" sandwiches - think they mustve gotten spell checked into that. Id peruse the menu trying to decide what to order and somehow that always put me off ever ordering the corned beef....

[LTL]

Lots of typos found on Chinatown menus including pork dumpings and boiled bumplings. The latter always makes me think of warts or something, perhaps due to the "bump".

[BobB]

The one that sticks in my mind was probably not actually a gaffe, but nonetheless...

It was at the long-defunct Peasant Stock in Cambridge, MA, the menu one night offered "Roast Puerto Rican Kid."

[yakitat jack]

Roast Puerto Rican young goat. A young goat is known as a kid.

[BobB]

Uhhh...yes. I know that. It's just the way it was phrased struck me as funny. You may disagree if you like.

[lizzy]

We regularly receive a Chinese take-out menu where all the vegetarian dishes have either chicken or shrimp an an ingredient.

[Azizeh Barjesteh]

At Bond 45 in NYC during Valentines Day week, the boyfriend and I laughed over the "Broccoli Rape" being served alongside the chicken.

[rockycat]

That, actually, is not a typo. But it would explain why that vegetable is usually referred to as broccoli rabe. Same thing for canola oil. It's made out of rapeseed but most marketers wouldn't be putting that in big letters on their packages.

[Just One Bite]

There's a Mediterranean restaurant in Burbank which has Homos on the menu. You can get anything delivered in Los Angeles!

[babybat]

There's an Iranian takeaway place near me that's very good, but their menu is packed full of amusing typos. Would you prefer the "Baby Aborigine" (I'm guessing aubergine?) or the "Whore Okra" (whole, I hope!) Thankfully the food justifies the comedy value!

[Cheese Boy]

The Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn is heavily populated with Russian immigrants and most of the residents there speak in their native tongue. In addition to that, most of the store signage there is foreign to me, because it is all in Russian. On one particular day I happened to stop in to a store and decided to browse their selection of packaged fish fillets. I was thrilled to see that the labels were in English. Hooray!
Upon closer inspection, I noticed the label read 'God Fish' all in caps. 'Oh, they must mean Cod fish', I said to myself. But as I sifted through the other packages, I noticed they all said that. Tilapia, flounder, tilefish -- ALL God fish. No cod anywhere. I walked out of there and said to myself, 'I'm not ready for this yet'.

[vorpal]

Hahaha! Reminds me of some of the stores in Toronto Chinatown. One day I was walking through, and everything wrapped in plastic with a printed label was idenified as "Vietnamese Herbs". I bought some nice ground Vietnamese herbs from the meat counter to go with my Vietnamese herbs from the produce section to make some delicious dumplings :-).

[Caroline1]

I have a treasured menu I stole from a restaurant in Turkey decades ago. A featured entree: "Beef things." I have no idea. Didn't have the nerve to order it.

[pellegrino31]

Reminds me of an entree at a resort in the Dominican Republic. The menu says "beef plate". I took a chance my first night and it turned out to be skirt steak and it was perfect! I noticed no one ever ordered it except me and my SO.

[Das Ubergeek]

Beef plate is actually the technical term for the larger cut of meat that skirt steak comes from... but your average diner wouldn't know that!

Thai Beer in Los Angeles used to advertise deep-fried vegetarians... and the sign at Cocary Hot Pot said "Picture may vary from the real".

[BobB]

Skirt steak is very popular in the Caribbean. We had some fantastic ones in Vieques recently.

[Jasz]

Not on a menu but on a box of imported pudding mix: the translation instructed to "...boil the mass until it congeals…" Doesn't that sound just delish?

[small h]

My two Chinese menu favorites (and I've seen them multiple times because I'm sure one company prints menus for many different restaurants): Beef cubs over white rice, and sauteed crap with ginger and scallion. Cubes, for sure, but crab? carp? Could go either way, I guess.

[rockycat]

A very famous Shanghai-style restaurant in NY offers an extensive variety of fish dishes. For many years their menu had a full page of Buffalo Carp dishes. Problem is, "carp" was misspelled every last time. The problem has since been corrected but every time I'm in there I think back to the many ways one can prepare buffalo crap.

Btw, their carp dishes all taste great.

[ms. clicquot]

An Indian place opened in my neighbourhood a while back and while their delivery menu was riddled with errors, my favourite was the 'Green Peepers' that were in one of the dishes. Keep your curtains closed when you order that one...

[linguafood]

"Steaming dough pockets with vegetables and fungus" which I am guessing was supposed to say "Steamed dumplings with vegetables and mushrooms." I think I owe my business to that one.

Another cute one on Crete at a small souvlaki stand, which had a menu with Greek, English, and German:

patates / fried potatoes / Kartoffeln. Frieden (=potatoes. peace.).

Cute!

[akq]

FYI - in Chinese cooking, fungus isn't the same as mushrooms - we actually use fungus and call it such (e.g. black fungus or wood ear fungus).

[linguafood]

Ok, but I am more than doubtful that the German cook of this hotel was *really* using fungus, and not mushrooms. Thanks for the input, tho.

[akq]

Hmm. Sorry - I assumed it was a Chinese place. No idea whether Germans use fungus, but you're probably right!

[StriperGuy]

Do keep in mind that in Italian you say fungi for mushrooms...

[linguafood]

Yes, in Italian you say funghi. In English, however, you say mushrooms.

[Zatan]

Once at Chef Chang's in Brookline having Peking Duck (just having returned from Beijing and remembering the multi-course meal I'd had of the duck there) I asked the waiter if they had the liver. The reply was "No! Takeout only!". I tried repeatedly, pointing at my side, the duck, etc. to no avail, just "takeout only!" haha.

Just in case... "the liver"....de liver.....

[Stride]

My favorite was in Edinburgh. We saw a restaurant boasting American cuisine, and when we checked the menu in the window we were delighted to see "Whack of Ribs".

Ouch.

[csammy]

I was at a restaurant in California that was serving " Suckling Chicken".

[greygarious]

Stop genetically-modified food now! ;)

[ChickenBrocandZiti]

Two of my favorites. There is a liquor store in Chinatown that had a note on their emergency exit that read" Door unrock when building occupan"

Another place downtown had a sign in the window reading "lunch special free for small coke" I always wanted to walk in with a small Coke and ask to exchange my Coke for a lunch special.

[fieryredhead]

I went to a retirement party once where the caterer's menu proudly announced its use of "mescaline greens." And this was in a law enforcement field, no less!

And our nearest steak place has an item, intended to make you feel nostalgic ... "Yesterday's Meatloaf." It always leaves me wondering whether they make it from uneaten steak bits off people's plates? Enough to make me want to stay away altogether.

[shaogo]

Chefs and restaurant employees who spell "mescaline" for mesclun on promotional materials are indicating to the rest of the world exactly where their heads are at...

[thew]

i keep trying the mescaline salad, but my tolerance must be way up. no kick at all

[jgg13]

"Free Delivery: $1" or something along those lines - used to be on the menu for Pu Pu Hot Pot.

[KevinB]

I went to a Chinese spot in Toronto years ago that offered a "Poo-Poo" platter. My friends and I thought that was hilarious.

[vorpal]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a pu-pu platter is the actual name for a type of mixed appetizer plate :-). I laughed the first time I saw it in DC, too.

[alanbarnes]

Pūpū is a Hawai'ian word. Loosely, it just means "finger food." The pupu platter has become a fairly standardized Americanized Chinese dish (egg roll, chicken wing, crab rangoon, fried shrimp, etc.), but pupus in Hawai'i are much more diverse. And they're delicious!

[KaimukiMan]

and the Hawaiians adopted it from the "Paniolos" or Hawaiian Cowboys who were originally mostly Spaniards (espanols). I was really shocked one day when driving thru a heavily latino part of LA to see a "Pupuceria", sort of a tapas bar.

[alanbarnes]

So pupus come from pupusas? That's a very cool theory.

But some sources claim that it was originally used to refer to relishes served with kava kava. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu_pu_pl...) That doesn't sound very paniolo. Pipikaula, sure. But banana relish? Not so much.

Another theory is that it's a loan word from Cantonese, although that seems less plausible.

We need an etymologist here!

[KaimukiMan]

converging cultures... always interesting. Perhaps the spanish picked it up during half a millennium of exploring the pacific.

[hill food]

good point, and the Portugese and Dutch.

it is fascinating when cultures mesh and what they take away.

[StriperGuy]

Oh dear, my all time favorite at a restaurant in Mallorca Spain many years ago:

The menu was in Spanish and English. They had really intended to say "BBQ Rabbit", or "Rabbit Grilled over a Wood Fire."

Instead, the English language menu said: "Rabbi on hot wood." Shades of the Spanish inquisition, shiver...

[greygarious]

That's priceless! Oh, and that reminds me - the section of The Pongal menu which describes the tandoori breads is entitled "Bread from Clay" , calling to mind the biblical loaves and fishes miracle!

[almansa]

At a Mothers Day lunch I saw "Mother's Milk and Cookies." I can only assume...

[carbocat]

lmao

[goodhealthgourmet]

ok but the disturbing thing is that there's a chef in NYC who has been serving cheese made from his wife's breast milk...
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ma...

[alkapal]

very disturbing. what some won't do for shock value. but of course all "outré" and pushing-the-envelope self-described extreme foodies will laud it.

[thew]

why is that disturbing? if you think about it, having the milk from some other animal ought to be weirder than having human milk.....

[alkapal]

ha ha, thew. somehow i knew who might defend this.

[jumpingmonk]

Actually I seem to recall a short story (forgot the title, but I remeber it was one of the ones in "Dangerous Visions" (or maybe "Again Dangerous Visions") about an earth where this was the norm.

[KaimukiMan]

visions of big warehouse like structures full of buxom women chewing high calcium foods and taking drugs to optimize output..... now thats disturbing.

[thew]

i prefer my buxom women free-range

[Parigi]

all this reminds me of the specialty Aux Mandarins at 1, rue de Berri in Paris: "chef's kidney - les rognons du chef".

[hill food]

Parigi: was he a heavy drinker? that might be intriguing...

[deshuitres]

The "goes down your gullet effortlessly" reminds me of one of my favourite English expressions- "slips down a treat" to describe fabulous food or drink. I was in a Chinese restaurant in Paris where they had attempted to translate the menu badly into English and they offered " Chinese stir fried with vegetable". I always wondered who the unlucky person would be.

[KaimukiMan]

a place here had a sign... "stir fried vegetarian with tofu" sadly someone told them what it meant and they fixed the sign. such a shame, always made me smile.

[girlygirl]

You can find a ton of gaffes in any of the menus in chinese restaurants. My favorite was the 'chicken paws' I saw on the dim sum menu/flyer I found on my car from the New Shanghai restaurant. I'm Chinese so I can laugh, right?