
Sometimes descriptions in menus at Chinese restaurants are truly amazing. Yesterday I came accross this one in a Sichuan restaurant next to our office (sorry, picture is not very sharp), where a plate of stir-fried Pleurotus Nebrodensis is available next to a portion of Great Bumper.
What happens is that the people who make these menus just translate the Chinese name in English with a dictionary. In this case a Google search learned me that the Pleurotus is a mushroom, so they should have just called it stir-fried mushrooms. And Great Bumper? I still have no clue how they got that name.
I am a Dutch entrepreneur in Shanghai who has lived and worked over 12 years in China. Co-founder of among others Tudou.com and unitedstyles.com, advisor to Spil Games for which I set up and led the Asian operation (2006-2011), and angel investor in Chinese Internet and tech start-ups. Married to Grace, with whom I have a son (Scott) and a daughter (Elaine). These are my personal views and do not necessarily represent the companies I am involved with. You can reach me at marcvanderchijs (at) gmail (dot) com
2 Responses to “Pleurotus Nebrodensis and Great Bumper”
Marc, great examples of funny translations. I’ve seen quite a lot of these funny translations, but these score above 8 on the 0-10 scale.