Grilled Rat and Fried Bowels
 

In another thread ("Best Time to go to Vietnam") my compatriot Pat Woolford recalled being offered a delicious "Grilled Rat with Soya Cheese Dressing" in Can Tho, Vietnam. This brought to mind a couple of other menu classics found in Hanoi - "Fried Bowels with Grease", and the mysterious "Net Small Appetite (150 gm)". I found "Frops Jumped to the Ginger" a bit disorienting too, until finally figuring out that it must have been the result of an overly-literal French-English translation combined with someone's poor handwriting (or eyesight).

Does anyone else have a favourite bizarre (or just bizarrely-translated) menu item? I'd love to hear 'em.

darn I cant remember any funny menue items but I do remember a sign (menu) at a cafe in yangsu, china which reads. "we have no opium...heroin...we have freshly made coffee, hot chocholet..etc....

maybe I dont rember the menuse cuz I tend too eat whats odd on the menues.
for instance i've eaten...

deep fried bamboo rat, China

fried scorpion, crickets, beatle. or was it a giant roach. and a bunch of insects in bangkok. which are somewhat common

Ormigas cullonas " big assed ants, pig brain with egg. USA/Colombia.

MMmmmm fried crickets...

When I first went to Burma in 1996, many of the restaurants in Bagan had an item on their menus, 'Billy Goat's Family Jewels'. I assumed that an English speaker had given this description to a restaurant owner as a joke and it had caught on. When I returned on later trips the item had disappeared (possibly because of lack of demand for it from tourists).

I remember seeing the following sign outside a butcher shop in Delhi: "Pig meet"

You don't have to travel to Asia to see interesting menu items.

I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Some years ago I went to a Northern Chinese restaurant and saw the following items on the menu: Sweat & Sour Pork, and Human Hot Pot (instead of Hunan Hot Pot).

I don't have a favorite menu "flub" but at the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing the front sign reads "No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons Allowed" and that just cracks me up.

Neil, I never did find out what "fumigated pig" is - advertised on footpath eatery in Hanoi. Nothing to do with menus but what really cracked me up was sign outside the infamous Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi "no frolicking or moving of toilets". Just the spot for a merry frolic!

That is funny that in Hanoi they serve grease with their fried chitlins. That Hard Rock slogan is used at their other locations.

This thread is on the general theme of Engrish to which there is a website devoted. The site does have, as requested by the OP, menu items listed.
See: http://www.engrish.com/category_inde...category=Menus

Thanks for that website, frmwlnu - I'm off to check it out. I guess Engrish is closely related to Chinglish and Japlish? And yes, I suspected that it was chitlins, but "fried bowels" is more graphic, isn't it?

Yes it is more graphic, Nell. Have fun at the site.

mrwunrfl, the site's great - thanks. And sorry I screwed up your username last time - I must be coming down with dyslexia. My daughters are currently teaching English in China and feel that there should be a few openings for English-speaking editors, but the locals don't see the problem. Well, I guess if they did there wouldn't be a problem.

Back to menus, a "Sydney Morning Herald" reader recently reported finding "vegetable and crap soup" in Lao Cai. Hopefully not associated with the fried bowels with grease....

I remember eating once in the Seychelles "bat stew"... Rather good, the poor thing tasted in fact like chicken...

Wonder if they meant "cat" LOL!

yesterday I want too a neighberhood resteraunt I often go too in bkk and I noticed they had ROASTED TIT.. yummy. i prefer mine fresh.

they also had "cock"... I don't want too know what that is... but I think they ment cook

I think the menue is new since I don't remember ever seeing these crazy miss spelling. you'd think they hired me too write the "ENGLISH" meunue...

orgy7, you have a BIG future in China. Seize the opportunity while you're still young, mate!

You don't have to look too far to find strangeness on the menu. In the US, tripe, sweetbreads, and Rocky Mountain oysters come to mind.

There used to be a chinese cafe on Sentosa Island, Singapore called "Golden Showers". I won't go any further!

"Lard" on the list of appetizers in a restaurant in Arona,Italy. Did not have the courage to order it.

OK, does someone want to explain what a Rocky Mountain oyster is? Or am I better off not knowing?

for sure not the kind you slurp raw from a shell :)