Saturday, August 12, 2006

Menus



I couldn't, or rather we couldn't, help but having lots of fun as we read the menu items of the بيت الياسمين (Beit Al-Yasmeen) Restaurant.
And the translation goes as follows:
Sticks = Stakes
Keeve = A la Kiev (as I believe, but it is definitely not as written)
Blue = Bleu (I don't want to be too critical, it could be correct in English, but I know it is written in French)
Felaih = Filet (I can't believe someone fell for this horrible mistake, what kind of an asshole is responsible for this??? And how come that we started translating From Arabic to English some words that are already English or French in origin, and at the same time they are not translated into an Arabic equivalent, just a phonetic equivalent)
Chicken Chest = Chicken Breast (They may have thought that chicken breast is a bit too sexy)

Bottom line, is it possible that these deadly mistakes are happening every here and there?
What kind of people are running the restaurant without internally reviewing what shows on their menus?
Why doesn't the ministry of tourism or the one responsible for restaurants employ or create the position: "Menu Checker" to correct all the typos and translation errors that occur. These are not the first I saw, will not be the last. It just happened I had a camera with me.
Again, definitely the English version of a menu is not dedicated for us. So if a foreigner decides to come to a restaurant and read the menu, shouldn't it be correct and sense-making? Posted by Picasa

1 Comments:

At Mon Aug 14, 11:41:00 AM GMT+3, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I actually find these mistranslations rather endearing. I have come across many of them in Syria, and, as a former cross-word puzzle enthusiast, I actually find it interesting to solve these funny little slips of tongue. One of my favourite exotic restaurants in Damascus is al-Rayyes (ex Normandie), a shabby place that has a lot of charm with its run-down decor. Their menu with translations is downright hilarious! You should check it sometimes. But please, please, don't mention it to them - I don't want them to change anything and become like all other restaurants!

:)
Sampsa from Finland

 

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