For our next few restaurant experiences, we discovered the camera button on Google translate. If you haven’t seen this, seriously, go download the app and check it out. While not perfect, it usually can do the job well enough for you to get the gist of what you’re trying to read, along with a healthy dose of presumably mistaken word or phrase translations.
The first time we used the app, we used it to help translate our receipt at a Polish restaurant, which seemed like it had a couple extra items. At this moment, we hadn’t realized that you could actually take a picture of what you were looking at; we thought you were just supposed to hover over whatever you were trying to read and catch the live translation. If you’ve ever done one of these “live” translations, you know that the phone typically picks up different words and letters in different moments, so the translation is constantly changing, providing a random assortment of wonderful mistakes.
We tried and failed miserably to contain ourselves and pretend like we were somewhat normal people reading our receipt of pasta and wine. It was hard to do while holding your phone like a magnifying glass over a receipt and crying with suppressed laughter.
I think the best item our phone reported as a charge was, “SEX TUITION.” Worthy runners-up included, “VULNERABILITY GRANDE” and (my personal favorite), “CRYING WITH CREAM CHEESE.” If I ever have my own café, those two items would definitely make the menu.