Funny Chinese Restaurant Menu Boards

We went to have lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Cupertino near the barbershop where my grandson, son and I get our haircuts when I'm visiting them in San Jose. It's called Tam Cafe (aka Venus Cafe), and they serve Hong Kong style Chinese food.

It's one of these places that pastes gazillions of extra menu items on its walls. I love reading menu posters and flyers in Asian restaurants because they always misspell words and it's great entertainment.

The first menu board I saw offered "Prawn Bulls with Egg Noodle Xo Sauce" (the item in the middle).  What the heck are "prawn bulls"? Are they little shrimpy cattle with long horns that paw the dirt and snort, then charge you? Do they lie in wait for you while you're messing around with their coral?

What they really meant were "prawn balls" ... no, it's not what you think. It's like salmon balls but with ground-up shrimp.

Notice too that they offer "Firch Rice" (the item at the bottom). Again, what the heck are they talking about? I think they meant to say "fried rice." In fact, I know what's what they meant because we asked them.

Awrighty then, one other poster got the "L" out of there. Instead of writing "Sizzling," they dropped the L in all references to the word and offered the diners "sizzing" instead.

No insult intended, I realize their difficulty with the English language.

If they speak to you in Chinese and ask you to write it down in English, you'd have more trouble than they do. It's just that it's funny to us because we're not in their shoes.

Still ... it IS funny.