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Humorous Food Signs


glossyp

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There used to be one of those giant, sprawling truck stops we always drove past on vacation that put up billboards every few miles on the interstate. I think the owners really wanted bang for their advertising buck because they crammed in more words than you could read at one time on all of them. Driving down the highway you'd read the top line, drive a few miles, read the next line, drive...and so on. The thing that cracked my brothers, sister and I up was the last line. We looked forward to seeing the signs every year and were really sad when a tornado flattened the place and the signs came down. The last line read:

"Sparkling Restrooms*Kids Eat Free!"

"Life is a combination of magic and pasta." - Frederico Fellini

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My favorites:

Spotted on the side of a liquor store in Caye Caulker Belize was a sign for Green Stripe Beer. It had what may be the shortest and sweetest marketing slogan ever coined: "Drinking is Fun!"

In my old neighborhood we had a sign that actually made it into the Humorous Signs page of National Lampoon Magazine: "Funeral Home and Deli Parking"

In Oregon near the border of Washington I visited a combination rapid oil change / latte shop. Their sign: "We've serviced more models than Hef".

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One of the best I've seen was at a convenience store in deer-hunting country in Long Neck, Delaware where we go in the summer. The place is a game check in station and has a permanent sign that says:

Free Hamburger and Coffee

With Each Deer

Not being a bambi stalker I had to pay for my burger.

Neil

Trivia Craze LLC

http://www.triviacraze.com

Creators of Foodie Craze,

The fun trivia game for food lovers

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I haven't seen it, because it's on the other side of town from me, but the local paper reports that there is a new Vietnamese restaurant in Charlotte called:

Pho Real

"There is nothing like a good tomato sandwich now and then."

-Harriet M. Welsch

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Not a sign exactly, but this was a description on a menu hanging in the WINDOW of a Chinese restaurant:

General Tso's Chicken---Tender slices of chicken, breaded and fried, then sauteed in our chef's sweat and sour hot sauce.

Yum.

This makes me want to start a thread about the grossest thing you've ever seen in a restaurant. Although, gee, not right at Thanksgiving. Maybe next Halloween. My wife and I were in Lao-Thai bistro and witnessed the chef making spring rolls. He licked his fingers before rolling each one. Don't get me started ...

Neil

Trivia Craze LLC

http://www.triviacraze.com

Creators of Foodie Craze,

The fun trivia game for food lovers

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  • 2 weeks later...
Epstein's Bar

82 Stanton St

New York, NY 10002 

(212) 477-2232

Apparently it is not named after the virus but, rather, according to CitySearch, "it's actually a tribute to Welcome Back Kotter's fun-loving Puerto Rican Jew, Warren Epstein--a hero of the bar's owners."

actually his name was Juan Epstein,

there is a restaurant in stanford Ct ( and if anyone lives in the area please please take a photo), it is in Sheraton and you can see the sign clearly from 95.. the place is called Vulvi and what actually makes it fantastc is the logo which is a thick V with a very pronounced ummm shall we say slit at the base ....

now every time I pass it I imagine the meeting at the Sheraton Corp. prior to this restaurant going in to thier hotel...I figure it went like this "hey umm I have just one small issue about the logo, dontcha think it kind looks a bit well umm uhh..(blush, blush blush) oh never mind, I guess its ok"

"sometimes I comb my hair with a fork" Eloise

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Just down from the New Green Bo isn't there the New Big Wang?

I was actually just in DC for a urology conference - not kidding - and our hotel was next to the Chinese restaurant New Big Wong.

Edited by Adrienne Carmack (log)
"God give us good taste, why bother?" Captain Jim's Sushi Chef
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in downtown dover, new jersey we have

Fred's Fish Market

which is in the rear section of the building it shares with

Dover Pet Store - and yes, they sell fish.... :blink:

Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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There was a really seedy bar in Lk Worth where day laborers collected and were picked up for and dropped off after work. The bar owner painted over his sign and had Hand painted

"don't ax for credit, I'm broke my damn self."

Tony

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in downtown dover, new jersey we have

Fred's Fish Market

which is in the rear section of the building it shares with

Dover Pet Store - and yes, they sell fish.... :blink:

Back in the 1980s, on Manhattan's Third Avenue (between 34th and 35th Streets), there was a seafood restaurant, a fish market, and a pet shop with aquariums in the window. :blink::blink:

In my parents' neighborhood in Brooklyn, there was a Weight Watchers in a second story storefront just above a fancy cake bakery. :blink:

I'm sorry I never got photos.

SuzySushi

"She sells shiso by the seashore."

My eGullet Foodblog: A Tropical Christmas in the Suburbs

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gallery_7409_476_37417.jpg

My good friend Philadining found this South Philly classic and sent it to me.

I didn't realize that hit men were so specialized... :laugh:

Katie M. Loeb
Booze Muse, Spiritual Advisor

Author: Shake, Stir, Pour:Fresh Homegrown Cocktails

Cheers!
Bartendrix,Intoxicologist, Beverage Consultant, Philadelphia, PA
Captain Liberty of the Good Varietals, Aphrodite of Alcohol

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There was a restaurant in Auckland called.

Young Pink One

Not sure what they served but the name disturbed me.

:shock:

Smell and taste are in fact but a single composite sense, whose laboratory is the mouth and its chimney the nose. - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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  • 1 month later...

I got this in my email today!! :laugh:

This is the English translation of a menu in China. (For some reason, steak is listed under "Pick Types" and "Sand" is actually "salads")

manu1.jpg

manu_1_1.jpg

manu_2_1.jpg

Put me down for an order of "Butter many privates", please, followed by some "the bureau swallows to follow the fish idea powder." :laugh::raz:

Edited by Ling (log)
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Hrm, I'm a bit surprised "butter many privates" is on the menu at a restaurant. Possibly one of those dishes better that might be better at home? Or in a doggy bag?? Still for the price it seems reasonable, and a little public buttering never hurt anyone.

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When I was visiting Beijing, I always made a point to order the most creatively described thing on the menu - My favourites were "The Palace Explodes the Chicken" and "The Water Boils the Peanut". "Squirrel Shaped Fish" was also nice.

I'm trying to figure out what's exactly lost in translation there...obviously, they mean "Boiled Peanuts", but instead they set water up as the subject, eschew the adjective, and go straight for an active present simple sentence, with "peanut" as an object. (Although it's heartwarming that they remembered to use an article.) Is this how it would be described in Mandarin, and they just translated literally? Any Chinese grammarians out there?

My favourite sign in Seoul is "Born to Be Chicken" - a fried chicken restaurant near Seoul Station.

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:laugh::laugh::laugh:

I KNEW that "the bureau swallows to take the fish idea powder" and that "Napoleon fries the idea powder" all this time, in my heart - - - but had never seen it so succinctly expressed.

As for me, I am merely "living to fry the beef rice" (remember the disco song of the same name?) and naturally, in my off hours, to "pick private's ham of three texts cure". That does take a lot of time.

Singing the "song of sung" in happiness at your find,

I remain,

"The Cold Cow in West in Special Grade Picks"

P.S. Are you sure this is not a code? Anyone that reads it will fall down laughing and whomever wrote it can then come in and steal our jewelry and bonds and even our pastoral egg sand! :shock::blink:

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When I was visiting Beijing, I always made a point to order the most creatively described thing on the menu - My favourites were "The Palace Explodes the Chicken" and "The Water Boils the Peanut". "Squirrel Shaped Fish" was also nice.

I'm trying to figure out what's exactly lost in translation there...obviously, they mean "Boiled Peanuts", but instead they set water up as the subject, eschew the adjective, and go straight for an active present simple sentence, with "peanut" as an object. (Although it's heartwarming that they remembered to use an article.) Is this how it would be described in Mandarin, and they just translated literally? Any Chinese grammarians out there?

Yup, (former) Mandarin teacher here. This would be taking it literally from Mandarin for 'boiled peanuts'. (I'm guessing that 'boiled' here would literally have been 'boiled in water', which is where you're getting the word water from).

Nowadays I do technical translations from a couple of Asian languages, and occasionally my employers 'help' by giving me a machine translated version of the original text. The level of weirdness in those texts, of breaking the original words up in the wrong places, and of then choosing an inapproprate English translation for those words looks depressingly similar to both your translation and the menu in Ling's post.

So I'd say that it almost certainly has been run through one of the poorer machine translation programs, and then never checked by anyone who knows any English.

Incidentally, my absolute all-time favorite weird sign was the English on a packet of tea I bought once in China. Apart from allegedly curing gout, baldness, stomach upsets, syphilis, and what have you, it also was meant to cure 'hrrnk'.

Hrrnk ? :wacko:

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Hrrnk is what happens when you don't Swallow to take the fish sand. :laugh:

Personally, I'd like to see a pic of "the onions pig picks." If they're any good, you may be looking at some cheap labor here.

I've played around with those translation programs, and it just translates things word for word. My SIL is an English teacher in Italy, and she says she always knows when her students use those programs for their homework.

Edited for clarification.

Edited by I_call_the_duck (log)

Karen C.

"Oh, suddenly life’s fun, suddenly there’s a reason to get up in the morning – it’s called bacon!" - Sookie St. James

Travelogue: Ten days in Tuscany

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In some translation programs, "hors d'oeuvres" means "out of work" (as in "jobless"). So, if you're dining in the restaurant where you work and your server is an ESL student given to literal translation, you might wan to go with the soup. :wink:

Judy Jones aka "moosnsqrl"

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

M.F.K. Fisher

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Ling,

This has to be the funniest fractured English menu ever. Makes me want to learn more Chinese characters so I can figure out what the heck they're describing!!!

(I'll take some "The pig picks the elder brother a cloth" followed by "Thousand enrich the special features three texts cure" please!)

SuzySushi

"She sells shiso by the seashore."

My eGullet Foodblog: A Tropical Christmas in the Suburbs

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