Ordering food with no English menu.

Personally, I just looke around at what everyone else is eating and when I find something that looks good, I point at it and smile and nod. Might not be the most polite, but it's worked so far.

I either carry a good quality mini dictionary or a pocket sized translator. In most places I've travelled, there's usually a young person who can speak at least some English. Sometimes persons with Authority can speak at least some English. I don't think I've ever really been stuck, YET!
There are some flash type cards available that I think are called "KwikPoint"?? We have them for Medical Emergencies.
I guess I've been lucky travelling with Flight Crew, we always have at least one language qualified translator on board.
Sorry I can't be of more help!

Safe Skies,
F/A

For menus in French, there is a small book, Marling Menu Master.

A few years ago Rick wrote about this in some article or guidebook. His advice was: when in doubt always order Spaghetti Bolognese. It's a simple dish, served at most any restaurant anywhere in the world, and you can never go wrong:)

Somehow I doubt they were serving Spaghetti Bolognese at Oktoberfest. : )

John, I like the small books that have little photographs of food and everything in a country. One such book is "HARPER COLLINS LANGUAGE SURVIVAL GUIDE : GREECE". (The Visual Phrase book and Dictionary). Other titles in that series are "France", "Spain", "Italy", "Portugal". In a restaurant just open your book and point to a color photograph of the food that you want. I would be very discriminating about what kind of food I order in France. And the book has a menu reader (English translation), and several phrases to say to the server in a restaurant. You can point to a phrase in the book. Most servers can read the language of the country that they are working in. And the book has a phonetic Menu reader. And much information about food and wine in that country. And questions such as "is there a good local restaurant ?", and "are there any vegetarian restaurants here ?", and "can you recommend a local dish?", and "what is this?", and "I'll have this", "excuse me !", and "tea with milk".

Actually the larger Oktoberfests usually do. At the very minimum they will offer Käsespätzle which is noodles/pasta with a cheese sauce. Very often you are given the choice of the cheese sauce or tomato-meat sauce(Bolognese). But the "beauty" of Spaghetti Bolongnese, is that it's pronounced the same way no matter where you travel. Kind of like Coke, Chips/French Fries, or Pizza.

I much prefer NOT eating in a restaurant with an english menu. That just means "too many tourists eat here and we serve mediorce food at best " to me. It may not always be true, but , usaully I prefer to eat in smaller places and eat what the locals do, picture menus and menus in english are tourist traps usaully.

I think the best thing to do is carry a menu translater . I would have say that Russia is a tough one though, different language and different alphabet, so I think the point and smile method might have been all you could have done there, LOL.

One time in Switzerland I pointed at what someone else was eating for lunch. It turned out to be the most delicious apple dessert not lunch. We ate 2 of them they were so delicious. In Germany on another menu I figured out the word ham from a pocket dictionary, it turned out to be Raw ham, a delicacy, but I could not get my self to eat it. My husband almost ordered horse, another delicacy. Years ago my dad explained he wanted a chicken sandwich. He got a giant loaf of French bread cut in half with a whole roasted chicken between it, bonees and all.
He had a good laugh about that for years.

For non-English, Roman script menus, it usually helps to familiarize yourself with the names of some of the regional foods, and names for common ingredients (potatos, cheeses, bread, meats, etc). You may not understand everything on the menu, but isn't discovery one of the joys of travel?

In Russia, it can be more difficult, because Roman transcriptions are not always present. The only real way around the problem is to learn the basics of the Cyrillic alphabet. This is not as difficult as it might sound (and not nearly as hard as learning the language!) Then, try to recognize the names of common foods.

Off the subject, but Michael, I just had the kasespatzle at a Wine Fest in Stuttgart last month. That stuff is delicious!!!

I don't agree that if they have an English menu, that "too many tourists eat here and we serve mediorce food at best." I think it's bad business to have a restaurant in a city with english-speaking tourists and not have at least ONE menu at your establishment in English. If having an english menu on the outside of your restaurant brings people in, then you'll make more money! Unless you're in a city that doesn't have a lot of tourists, every restaurant is bound to have visitors who don't speak the language. And even NON-native english speakers, sometimes have to use english as their common language (we saw this all over Prague.) Every single restaurant we went into when in Europe for 3 weeks had at least 1 english menu available, and we never had a bad meal. And there were a few places we went where we felt like the only tourists in the place.

Most people in Europe speak some tourist english. If you greet them in there tongue you will almost always
get english in response.

Here's a suggestion for all the "Foodies" among us...

Check out a few common receipes native to the areas in which you will be travelling in. Cook it up for you and your travel companions!

It gives you an idea of what you do and don't like ahead of time instead of ordering something you discover that you really don't like at all...
It's also a fun way to look forward to your upcoming trip!

I can usually speak "restaurant" in Europe- am familiar enough with different cuisines so that I know what many dishes are called. This was not the case in Prague. Our first few days were easy - everyone spoke English and all the menus had English translations - good for business as Prague is drawing people from all over Europe and they don't speak Czech. For our last dinner we had asked the drivers at the hotel for a recommendation. They directed us to a wonderful basement restaurant but we soon realized that we didn't have the slightest idea what to order from the non-Enlish menu as we had not paid attention to the spelling of the different foods we had ordered previously. The host spoke VERY little Enlish - enough to say "special?" and "beer?". We said yes, not knowing what the special was and had the best meal of our trip - a platter full of meat and potatoes and large glasses of beer. I wonder if we would have ordered this if given an English menu!

We did a wonderful thread on "what WAS that I ate?" a while back. A lot of surprises and great answers...I think that part of the travels of course includes the local cuisine.. sometimes we like it.. sometimes we don't. But it's always fascinating..Bon appetit

First, learn to speak German - problem solved.

Second, get Marling Menu Master.

Third, order Schnitzel. You can't go wrong. And it is usually cheap. Or Würst.

Lee, your posting gave me a chuckle. On our honeymoon in Germany years ago, my wife ordered only Schnitzel. Neither one of us speak or read German. Thankfully, on our trips since that time, we have learned a few food words and she is a little more diverse in her ordering.

Well Amy, I live in a very popular tourist city, and a cruise ship port to boot, and all our restaurant menus are in english,, our native tongue here, except for a few very authentic Chinese food places in Chinatown that cater to our large Chinese population.

We get alot of Japanese tourists though, and I have never seen a Japanese menu, and I have lived here for 45 yrs and spent at least 10 of those years in hospitality.

Does your city have menues in different langauges?

I was referring to European cities. English is spoken by many travelers, so it's very logical. I live near Nashville, and have no idea if the restaurants offer bilingual menus because I've never asked. But if I owned a restaurant in downtown Nashville, I would try to have menus on hand in some other common languages. With today's resources on the internet, it wouldn't be that big of a deal to do, and it could attract more business. English is considered a global language, so to have menus in english in Europe is different than having menus in french, spanish, japanese, chinese, german, etc. here. I'm sure that you're right that restaurants that DON'T have english menus are the restaurants where there are few tourists/lots of locals, and I'm sure you're safe in saying the cuisine will be great. But to assume that the ones that have an English menu are subpar is unfair. Since you're in Canada, is it common to have menus that are also in French? Or is that only near Quebec?

Lee, you're absolutely right, you can never go wrong with schnitzel!!! Yum. And I didn't realize how many different types of schnitzel that there were until our last trip. I saw it prepared so many different ways. And it was always awesome!

I think it's worth clarifying that there's a difference between an establishment that has a huge posterboard outside that shows their entire menu in 4 different languages (bad pix optional), and a restaurant that can provide an English version of their physical menu upon request.

I stay away from the former, but am quite thankful for the latter.

Some of the best meals I've ever had abroad have NOT had English menus. They were usually just around the corner from the "tourist trail" and yes, run by and mostly catered to locals. You won't find a server with a fancy bow tie but the food is FABULOUS!
One restaurant in particular in Alfama is SO fantastic that an offer was made to translate their menu into English, French, Spanish free of charge. They flat out refused. The owner is a very successful family who own two other restaurants in neighbourhoods throughout the city. They actually didn't want to attract too many tourists. They felt that tourist menus/traffic would actually turn away the many regulars who showed up daily with their pots in hand to take something hot home to their families.
We asked them if English speaking Crew were welcome, they said yes, we were not only regulars, but family, too!

Let's face it, when you cater too much to the tourist crowds, you lose some local charm. Some of the best restaurants I've found in Europe had no English menu. And as far as using an English menu to attract more business... perhaps I'm not the only one here who has noticed this- Many restaurants in Europe allow customers to linger for a long time, even if the restaurant is at full seating capacity. Methinks increasing their business is not the only goal.

Fair enough, I can see your points.

True, there are a lot of different kinds of schnitzel. If you don't know German, it is probably best to go with Wienerschnitzel (lightly breaded, lemon squeezed over it) or Jaegerschitzel (brown mushroom gravy). My favorite is Ziguenerschnitzel (gypsy style, with onions and red, yellow and green sweet peppers in a tomato based sauce) but it can be made a little spicey (pikant). On the other hand, most times I have ordered it, it was not.

I just got back from Germany. In a few places they offered me an English menu (they always noticed I was American from my accent), but I always told them I can read German (I can) and that was that.

Amy , although I live in what is a offically bilingual country the truth is 90% of people who do not live in Quebec , do not in fact speak french as first language ( or at all)
So in answer to your question, NO, there are no french menus available in my very touristy town I live in.
In some areas it may be possible to find a menu translated into Chinese as we have a heavy Asian population of immigrants and in the more authenitic Chinese restaurants offer the menu for the LOCALS in Chinese. So, kind of the opposite, if the menu is in chinese characters you know the food is more authentic chinese. LOL< I have had chicken FEET you know!

I have mostly travelled in the German speaking countries, and when in doubt, I order the tagesteller, or daily plate. It is often noted on a slate or other changeable sign, and is usually reasonably priced.

Speaking of bi-lingualism in Canada...There's some interesting history on it at the following link:

www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/lo-ol/biling/hist_e.cfm

Apparently New Brunswick is Canada's first and only Officially Bi-lingual Province. I never would have guessed that! It's true, most Cdns outside Atlantic Cda do not speak French as their first or only language, if at all... (That might explain the shortage of French menus...)
I only forced myself to learn it because it is a requirement under the Official Languages Act for Canadian F/A's to be fluent in both English and French minimum. Otherwise I would have gladly stopped learning it after the mandatory Grade 9 Credit needed in Ontario to Graduate from HS.

The best Chinese food that we've ever eaten was in Windsor, Ontario. There was a large Chinese family eating there, so we knew it would be probably be good -- and it WAS!!!

We travel all over Europe frequently (and I've lived in Asia). Learn enough of the basic foods (a 3X5 card as a tip sheet). Pork, chicken, potatoes, rice whatever you like. I've ordered some weird stuff with a familar food name in it - chicken voodoo whatyoumaycallit. Usually it's pretty good. Europe...English is (despite what the French might like to think) a bits and pieces universial language. Bits of German or Spanish also very helpful. Waiters want you to be happy. Memorize or write down "Your recommendation please" and the waiter will rarely let you down and no, he won't order the most expensive thing eithere. Usually the plate de jur is great.