What WAS that I ate??

Our biggest surprise was in Heidelberg a couple of years ago. I took my husband to POP which has always been one of my favorite Heidelberg haunts. He ordered 'Spaghetti a la Frank Sinatra'. This dish was so strange (octopus, eel, snails, etc.) that I had trouble just watching him eat it. He's a very adventurous eater when we travel, and he finished the entire dish. He would never have eaten it in Phoenix!

What IS is about being in a foreign land that prompts us to go native??? My husband gently picks the anchovies off our pizza here in the States.... yet actually ORDERS them as a side dish in Italy..

In Munich I ordered something called Meatloaf at the Hofbrahaus. When it arrived it was not like meatloaf at all. It was a big square of solid hotdog-like meat...yuk. But the rest of the food was delicious as was my wife's roasted chicken. We went back to the Hofbrahaus on the last night before leaving Munich. I ordered something different this time...something I had never heard before. When it came out, my wife and me had a BIG laugh because it was MEATLOAF...just like Mom used to make!

Last year my sister and I were dining at the Cafe du Marche in Paris -- one of Rick's and my favorites. I ordered the duck confit which I always get there, but then the waitress told us of the specials, one was "sausages and mashed potatoes". Well this sounded good, so my sister ordered it.

It was andouille (tripe) sausage, which she figured out about 1/2 way through. Apparently this is very popular there. Always know what kind of sausage you are getting, or better yet, stick with the duck!

Well.. we did JUST the opposite... We told our concierge that we wanted to go to a restaurant where they spoke NO english.. he grudgingly directed us to an out of the way little cafe ( NOT the Italian Garden wannabe where he got frequent kickbacks)It was small dark and full of noisy families and smelled so good we could have gnawed on the candles.. pictures of the owners and well known italian actors ( including Bobby DiNero ) graced the walls and we just pointed to anything on the menu that resembled "mare" as we knew it would have fins.. or claws or a shell. Well right we were and to this day I'm not sure where we went.. what we had.. or why we left, coz I should be there right now washing dishes and learning how to fix those shelled finned and clawed delicasies.... bella pesca!!!

While we were "stuck" on the Lido di Jesolo ( dont' ask) we went to one of those "shhh no one knows about this place" places.. Ordered the futta di mare. It was delicious if you closed your eyes and swallowed some of it whole.. I'm used to my calamari being in rings and tossed in garlic...not raw and dangly... anchovies are supposed to come on pizzas and be little, brown and salty aren't they? These guys were the size of small sardines. The crawfish were right out of the lagoon by the Adriatic and there was monkfish ( I'm guessing) and some shrimp and langostino..... I think..
what an adventure trying to guess what it was we were eating... no one spoke English...neither one of us speaks anything but "menu" Italian.. and these things weren't on the menu... It was chef surprise.

Kate: this is a fun topic! On a trip to France I was getting over confident about my French language restaurant ordering ability. I had my Marling Menu Master and thought I was showing a lot of savoir-faire with those French waiters. In Rouen one night I thought I ordered one thing but what I had really ordered where these little beasts from the sea that were staring out at me from the plate with their beady little eyes. There were so many of the little guys, it unnerved me. On previous nights I'd had escargot and steak tartare but these little guys I see in my dreams (occasionally).

I was traveling in Germany. I had taken just enough German to be dangerous and I thought that I could read the menu. After weeks of eating pork and potatoes at nearly every meal, I saw a salad with "geflugeleb" on the menu. I knew that geflugel was chicken and thought that the "eb" was just one of those German endings. I was looking forward to a lighter meal of salad topped with chicken. It turned out the second part of the word was "leber" (liver in German) and I actually got a plate of chicken livers. NOT what I was looking forward to. However, I was much more careful after that with my German language skills.

I can't remember the name of the restaurant in Chenonceau, but I shall never forget the meal. I ordered an "andouillet", thinking I would get a tasty French sausage. French sausage, yes. Tasty? Let me divulge. I normally am not particular about what parts of what animal are used in sausage. As long as the organ is ground, and it tastes good, I don't care- Weisswurst being a good example. When I cut open my andouillet, however, I could clearly identify sliced pieces of intestine, pancreas, heart, lungs, stomach and liver. Not a nice texture, and a worse flavor.

Well my daughter and I were with my brother in Switzerland many years ago, he speaks fluent German, so we thought we would be pretty safe. He thought he interpreted the menu fairly well, but much to our surprise my daughter ended up with a pizza that looked like it had a bunch of eyeballs looking back at you and my brother ended up with what looked like a plate full of green worms. We asked him what the heck he ordered and he looked at the plate with the most astonished face I have ever seen on him and innocently replied " I have no idea!! " We all laughed til we were blue in the faces and our stomachs hurt.

We walked the beautiful cobblestone path through Gargazzo Italy to Angelina's restaurant for dinner.. There is an ancient stream that runs through the village.. some say it's 2500 ft deep ..no one's been down that far.. Two HUGE geese guard the bridge like giant trolls. They are nasty and mean and will hiss at you and attack if not fed a morsel of bread.. Angelina's specialty appetizer is guess what??? goose bruscetta!!! Hmmph no wonder they're cranky!!

I LOVE good lemonade. If offered it in the UK, be prepared; what they call lemonade, we call Sprite!

I have a few stories -
1. My husband almost ordered horse in Alscase Lorraine area, turns out it is a favorite in that area and Switzerland.
2. Someone was eating something that looked so delicious that I pointed to it and ordered it in Luscerne - turns out it was one of the best deserts I ever had, but I thought I was ordering dinner.
3. Was tired of veal and saw ham on the menu using a German to English dictionary in Germany - turns out it was RAW ham. I couldn't get myself to eat it.
4. My dad ordered a chicken sandwich in France, it came out as a whole chicken (bones and all) between a loaf of French bread.
5. I ordered shrimp and they came with their heads on in France, I had a hard time eating something staring back at me.
6. Ordered a soup in Hong Kong and it came out with fish eyeball floating in it.
Eating abroard can be an adventure!

That's right - lemonade in Russia is what ginger ale is here.

Oh Kent.. I know what you mean about the "eyes" we tried to descretely pick them off, but soon we had a pile of eyeballs all going in different directions glaring at us and eveyone else at the table. scatter them about the plate.?? (looked like big cracked pepper corns) well when in Rone.. 'er Venice.. so pop.. crunch.. yuck!! We Americans are a bit particular when it comes to our cuisine.. I better wait a bit before venturing into the third world. Si?.

My biggest surprise wasn't too bad, but in Greece I ordered a glass of orange juice and a glass of lemon juice (thinking lemonade) only to find that sugar jar was needing to be refilled! I got a glass of fresh squeezed lemon juice! Exactly what I'd ordered.

The same with a new fish and chip order in London. I know I've ordered f & c in England before and didn't get this. . . the whole fish? Thankfully no head, but my dad made this meal when we went fishing when I was kid and I prefer more batter, less fins.

Third world orders. In Africa on a mission trip–when you think it might be meat, but it feels like bones, what is it? And socially is isn't acceptable to ask as they have sacrificed to feed you from their poverty, you gulp and swallow

We lived in Lisbon for three years. I've sat down in Portugal and gotten a plate of fried black eels... rubbery squid... marinated octopus... grilled sardines... and even eaten an apple with a fork and knife. Lots of pork and ostrich.

In Naples, Italy it was fried goldfish (bones and all)as an appetizer and a pizza topped with small shells, sausage, shrimp and squid. (unsliced of course).

In backwater Spain an order of a hamburger and french fries was a hamburger with -- you guessed it french fries between the burger abd the bun.

In Singapore it was sea cucumber and in South Korea it was probably dog.

Talk about a rainbow of flavors. The world's table contains many varieties.

We visited my sister lived in Greece and were invited to have roast lamb (actually baby goat) at one of her friends. It was a festival week and they were roasting lambs & kids on grills all along the street. My hubby (who has a rather delicate stomach) was working his way through the meat course when he asked why the goat penned in the yard was bleating so loudly. The answer was, "That's her kid you're eating -- we slaughtered it this morning and she's missing it." That did it for my hubby -- he got violently ill and refused to eat roasted lamb, goat, etc anymore during our trip.

I went to a tiny bistro in the Pigale area of Paris for dinner one night. I was asked if I wanted an English menu and I said no politely. After all, I had studied French school for 10 years and I could easily work my way around a menu. Well, I came across a word I didn't know. So I pulled out my pocket dictionary to look up the word "loup". Not anything I remember ordering over the years. Now mind you, I have eaten tripe, horse meat, etc. so I am not afraid to try something once. Well "loup" means "wolf" and I decided on the lamb instead :-)

Tomato salad in France is exactly that. Tomatoes! My plate had lettuce on it with about 5 or 6 tomatoes sliced up and that was it!

Great topic and reminds me of my worst experience. We were in Sicily in Argrigento staying at a hotel in the ruins. We went to the restaurant in the hotel for lunch and after going though a limited menu I decided on cervello. The waiter asked me if I was sure that's what I wanted and I smugly said yes. When the food came I had this breaded blob like thing on my plate. It definite wasn't the kid I thought I ordered. My husband asked me do you know what that is? After a couple of gagging mouthfuls I had the horrified realization that it was brains. There was no way I could finish it and I made a bee line for the room and the porcelain goddess where I spent most of the day and night. I was reduced to rice and soup for the rest of the days we were there. Now I make certain that I know all the words for animal parts in the local language. Big difference between cervello and capretto and one I won't forget. I prefer using my brains not eatting them.

Oh Dani.. that's the best yet!! And I thought I had it tough with the raw, dangling calamari.. at least I could identify it and gently move it over to my husband's plate..

Two summers ago my friend Kitty and I were traveling in France and stopped in Chartres. After driving half the day and visiting the cathedral we were famished so we found a charming bistro for lunch nearby.
Half-way through her salad, Kitty noticed a ladybug staring up at her from a lettuce leaf.
It was all she could do to control herself and not "toss her cookies" all over the reataurant, while I, a Berkeley girl, kept trying to reassure her that "hey, it's organic!"