Menu Atrocities

[WHT]

Fresh Homemade...

Our famous...

Authentic...

World famous...

Secret sauce

Our exclucive...

Award Winning...

Starters

[aschbren]

Fresh Homemade...

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I'll take that and raise you "Homade".

[kevinAspork]

Ahi Tuna

it's like saying ono Wahoo or mahi-mahi dolphin

please make it stop

[Andrew Fenton]

Ahi Tuna

it's like saying  ono Wahoo  or mahi-mahi dolphin

or, you know, "tuna fish."

[Rehovot]

At a pub this weekend, I encountered dozens of these gems, including the description for one entree, "meat with a crushing bouquet".

[enurmi]

The biggest, and most frequent menu atrocity - calling the Main Courses "Entrées"....

I wouldn't say that's an atrocity... Sure, it's not technically correct in France, but it's come to mean something. It's just like how we now say "The data is," which is technically incorrect. It should be "The data are," but if you were to say that, people would look at you askance. The other way has become colloquially grammatical.

Edited January 15, 2007 by enurmi (log)

[Jakea222]

Shrimp - Scampi == with Scampi being (Italian for shrimp)

So Shrimp-Shrimp!!

[insomniac]

tha reminds me, how about that little gem 'pizza pie'?

[Jakea222]

oh yeah I like the one Pizza Pie

as a southern boy (38yrs old) I learned a lot moving to NY to attend CIA - NYC the foods all over the place were amazing! Some were named like that - it was fun to see what Americans or (blank -insert nationality) Americans call the same thing in different regions - how cool is that -!!

[rconnelly]

how about "organic sushi"????

Turns out just the veggies are organic.

[serpentine]

The "Famous" Chicken and Waffles were memorably described to me and my dining companion.

The restaurant had been open for less than a week. I couldn't help myself from responding "what? famous among whom?"

(Needless to say, this restaurant was not Roscoe's, Wells, or Gladys Knight's.)

[tamiam]

My personal menu description favorite was at a pub not known for its cuisine. I don't recall the dish, but I do remember that it contained "carmelized cheese".

Edited January 19, 2007 by tamiam (log)

[WHT]

In the store today I had seen a can marked “Ripe Black Olives”. Talk about redundant names on things.

[Reefpimp]

one of the most ridiculous I've seen:

Freshly Harpooned Sashimi Quality Bluefin & Hamachi Tuna at a NY restaurant

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Not as funny as you might think. When I was attending an Ongoing Maritime Education class in New Bedford, Mass a couple years ago, (I think it was for my STCW cert), I had a couple classmates who'd worked on swordfish boats; apparently bluefin, like swordfish, bask on the surface with enough regularity that hunting and killing them with harpoon is nor nearly as rare an activity as you might think. Every possibility that that tuna had been killed with Ye Olde Harpoone. Crossing over the Acushnet river bridge every morning, I several times saw boats with bow pulpits so elongated that they were stowed folded up over the flying bridge. That would be, I guess, where the harpooner stands in the final moments of the hunt. "Swordfish pulpit" returns some 13,000 responses on everybody's go-to search engine.

[McDuff]

Somewhere in the archives I have an ad from a sub joint that offers "Free Homos with every order."

[jkonick]

I once went to a restaurant that had a salad with "forged greens." Forged from what???

[racheld]

I still love the menu item with the subtitle:

Dutchies Potatoes

Potatoes made with Dutchies

Edited January 25, 2007 by racheld (log)

[Reefpimp]

I still love the menu item with the subtitle:

Dutchies Potatoes

Potatoes made with Dutchies

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Pass the dutchie on the left hand side....

[annarborfoodie]

We chuckled last night when we noticed "Chef's Prefix Menu" on the list of specials. I guess a Japanese restaurant shouldn't try to use French on their menu?

[markk]

I've also seen "pre-fix" and "pre-fixed" on menus.

[JanMcBaker]

I once went to a restaurant that had a salad with "forged greens." Forged from what??? 

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...or forged as in counterfeit?

[phaelon56]

I once worked in a place that had "French l'oignon soup gratinee" on the menu. That was only one of the many bizarre French/English language mash-ups they had on the menu.

And we have a local Vietnamese restaurant whose menu includes a dish featuring "crunchy cash fish". But it's typo they just havent caught yet (years after it first appeared).

[abadoozy]

A local hotel here used to advertise "Duck ala Ronge" on their holiday buffets for a good two years in a row. I was tempted to call them and try to explain, but if the chef was so dim that he didn't catch it himself I doubted I could do anything for him.

[K_A_S]

One of my personal faves is a place that offered "vegetarian chile con carne." I've also seen plenty of the already mentioned shrimp scampi and things served "with au jus."

[Niamh]

A great but basic Chinese restaurant at home has several "guts" dishes that we haven't quite got around to trying...Fried Guts with Special Sauce, Steamed Guts with Mushroom....