ellenem

Tell us about your biggest food-ordering mistake, possibly/probably influenced by difficulty with a foreign language.

The first one that comes to mind. . .

We were dining at a nice restaurant in Madrid. It's dessert time and we notice an unusual entry: omas(?) de Santa Teresa (or a similar name). We ask the non-English-speaking waiter what it is. From our grasp of Spanish, we understand there will be eggs and sugar. Ah, we think, some kind of custard.

My companion receives his dessert. Imagine raw egg yolks with enough sugar mixed in to form it into bite-sized balls--seven of them in a nice circle on a plate. They tasted exactly as one would expect.

I shared generous amounts of my raspberry sorbet doused with raspberry liqueur--between giggles.

Next. . .

swalter518

We were in a bistro in Paris where my husband order Beaf Carpaccio-little did he know that Carpaccio was RAW beef. He likes his steaks rare but this was bloody! I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner though (what I could keep away from him!)

Operaman

We were in Vienna at the Volksoper cafe.
My wife said, "I'm going to be daring and order Gebackenes Hirn". As we waited for our food to come she recalled some of her German from her youth and said, "My God I think I ordered beef brains!" Sure enough that is what it turned out to be.

Carolred

I am sure I am not the only one who ordered ris de veau with limited French, expecting to get some kind of veal dish, only to find out it is sweetbreads! If you don't like organ meats, this is a nasty surprise!

Also, a few adventures with dim sum, where it looked interesting and tasted like paste.

A friend of ours always looks at the menu and orders the item which he does not know. This is how we discovered Andouillette (sp), among others!

Marilyn

Many years ago in Romania, as a splurge, we ordered a very expensive fruit cocktail for two for dessert. A covered silver tray was brought to the table. When the cover was lifted with a flourish, underneath was a can of Cock of the Walk Fruit Cocktail. It tasted like it had been around since WWII.

I guess this was a case where we got exactly what we ordered!

Dr_DoGood

Aah Carpaccio! One of my favourite meals... I enjoyed a particularly fine Duck Capaccio in a great little restaurant in Caylus (in Quercy, France) under the stars sat out on the terrasse.

A few years agi in Gerona my girlfriend (now fiancée) and I stopped at a bar in the full heat of the day and, with my niniscule (that's a typo but on reflection sums it up extremely well!) Spanish I magaed to order up dos cervezas (sp?) and a plate of calamari.

Anyway 2 and a half hours later when beating a retreat from the baking sun on top of the town walls (what is it Noel Coward wrote about Mad Dogs and Englishmen?) we found ourselve back at the same bar in need of two more cold beers. This time I refused to do any speaking and told George it was down to her... and I even coached her with the same magic phrase I'd previously used.
Same Bar, same barmaid, same phrase... only this time she shot back at us something unintelligible in Spanish or possibly Catalan. "Si, Si" I said quickly, smiling and looking cool. Heh this Spanish mularkey is pretty damned easy really.

Only she brought us two espressos. And I for one wasn't going to try and change them.

Doh!

Dr D.

KT

Carolred, I can assure you that you're not alone. There's a very great difference between riz and ris! Fortunately, my ris d'agneau was cooked with greens and enough spices that I ate it all up.

TuckH

As a student in Florence and wanting to show off my newly-learned Italian to my newly-acquired female friend, by ordering a quarter liter of Chianti, I said "un quatro per favor". Four full glasses arrived.

Scarlett

One year in Paris, we were wandering the back streets near the Marais and very hungry. so we just walked into a small bistro. No English spoken, but that's ok, we manage.
I tell my husband that the salad he wants has mussels in it..I forget the French word, but it was not mussels but beef snout!!
Luckily I had a big salad with smoked salmon so we shared.
Even if I ate meat, I don't think I could eat shavings of a cows nose!!

MelJ

Scarlett--even $50K isn't enough on Fear Factor to eat snout!

Several years ago in Florence, my sister and I collapsed at our hotel after a hot day of sightseeing. Wanting just a sandwich and a cold drink to take back to the room, we hit a little snack bar by the gym in the hotel. Speaking NO Italian and having no signs by the sandwiches, I pointed it one that looked like roast beef and cheese. Ordered two.

We were so starved that when we got to the room we just dug in. Well, the roast beef was anchovies and neither of us like them at all! Even removing them didn't work because the salty fish juice had permeated the cheese and bread. Probably wouldn't have been too bad except that when you're expecting to bite into beef and you get anchovies, it's an awful shock.

Okay, not a horror story, but we were too tired to trek to a restaurant and get something decent after that.

Scarlett

LOL, no Mel, not enough money for that!!
Anchovies and roast beef is pretty bad too

Lewis

Didn't happen to me but, my cousin in a restaurant in Paris. Finished ordering dinner and wanted some bread. He said "la pain SVP!" Waiter went off and came by a few minutes later, no bread, so my cousin asked again, Waiter said ok and went off. Came back and cousin asked again. Waiter said it's almost done. Cousin looked dumbfounded. They had to bake the bread?? Waiter came back with lapin!! RABBIT!! He learned bread was du pain, tough way to learn French, eh.

anissa

I have a very conservative friend that is a VERY picky eater. The first night in Germany she asked me to pick out a ham dish, without really looking or paying attention to the menu I pointed at something and told her to order it - I thought/read Shinken, but it was really Schnecken - which is snails. I know this isn't really exotic, but to see her face when the snails came out when she was expecting ham was priceless!! She gamely ate them, but vowed she'd never eat them again. My aunt also order Beef Tartare in Holland without realising what it was (raw hamburger with raw egg and spices) she too gamely ate about 1/4 of it before giving up.

Statia

NYC Korean restaurant on 32nd with my best friend. Not being able to read Korean, we just chose something that seemed interesting.

We weren't particularly enjoying the taste of our "multi-meat dish" but are open minded, so tried everything nonetheless.

The waiter must have sensed we didn't have a clue, because he politely informed us that we were eating just about every organ and appendage of the pig that we would not necessearily care to eat.

It was an experience, however.

cls2paris

On my first trip to Italy, a friend and I decided to try pizza. Neither of spoke any Italian but we figured pepperocini must be the Italian spelling for pepperoni. Wrong! We got a pizza with about 6 big yellow banana peppers on it! Neither of like peppers, so we picked them off the pizza. The waiter kept coming by and smiling at us - well, probably laughing, why would we order pizza with peppers on it only to pick the peppers off and not eat them???

StCirq

On my first trip to Italy in 1975, I wandered into the Piazza della Signoria in Florence and spied a vendor selling what looked like barbecue sandwiches. Even though I spoke Italian pretty well, I didn't think to ask him what they were, and there was a pretty good size line queueing up to buy these sandwiches, so I figured they must be good.Also, it smelled good - a rich tomato smell.
When my turn came, the vendor took a panino and filled it up with this delicious-looking barbecue stuff and handed it to me in a piece of waxed paper. I took one (large) bite and literally spat it onto the sidewalk in front of several rather amazed people - it was tripe - YUCK! I'm a pretty adventurous eater, but the consistency of tripe I just cannot handle.

Budman

In Brussels I saw an American order "Filet American." Thinking it was a filet of beef, much to his surprise it was raw hamburger with spices and a raw egg on top then all mixed in. Steak tartar. You should have seen the look on his face.

DeborahAnn

Ellenem A plat I think I will remember the rest of my life was served to me in a beautiful setting outdoors in Menton. I love seafood and ordered what I thought was fruit de mer. I was served what looked like an fried haystack that although crunchy was not remarkable. I was half way finished when what I had thought was pepper in the dish turned out to be eyes of very little fishes. As much as I willed myself I just couldn't eat another bite of those little creatures. I later saw them fresh in a market of Nice. Maybe everyone eats little fishes whole but I couldn't do it knowingly. Deborah Ann

ellenem

So my companion knew he had ordered octopus stew. We were in a New York restaurant--the menu was in English. His dinner arrives and I immediately saw what was going on. He was tricked by the gravy camouflage. He poked the mound on his plate and then he realized: No, the octopus had not been cut neatly into bite-size pieces. In fact, each 10-inch leg was still intact and all eight legs were still connected at the center.

I recommended that he ask the chef to cut it into more manageable pieces. It was a delicious dish, but the initial scare spoiled his enjoyment of the meal.

hanl

More octopus stories! Once in Prague with a friend, about 10 years ago, we headed to a local pizza restaurant in the hope that we would get something recognisable to eat. Though the menu was entirely in Czech, I thought I was well prepared with my phrasebook and proceeded to order a large pizza. It arrived, looking delicious, but as we began to eat and peered under the cheese, we realised it had been topped with just about anything you might care to imagine, including octopus, small fish, eggs, cauliflower, diced carrots, spinach and peas!! It actually wasn't that bad, but it sure didn't taste like pizza...
I also had a runin with an octopus in Granada when ordering fried calamari rings from a takeaway vendor. They were out of calamari and offered me "pulpo" which I'd eaten before - usually tiny, whole octopus fried in batter and quite tender and tasty. Except this time, he handed me a paper cone filled with great long tentacles, some of them still attached at the top. They were so rubbery and chewy, and the effect was like something out of a horror movie (my friends made me turn away so they wouldn't have to look!). Most of my tentacles ended up in the bin...