The author of a certified Chinese translation service recently visited a number of western restaurants, most of which adopted the traditional western menu mode, that is, a list of cooking methods and raw materials in both English and Chinese. However, lots of local people refuse to go to western restaurants because they couldn’t understand the menu which is in a foreign language. Without knowledge of English and French, they may order four kinds of soup instead of the appetizer, soup, entree and dessert. Today, most menus in western restaurants adopt Chinese in detail, including the main ingredients, preparation, serving and taste.
Chinese menus are usually prepared by the staff in the restaurant based on the sample dish and the ingredient, cooking method and serving. Sometimes, it is extremely difficult to translate some ingredients which are indigenous to a particular country and are only in English, Italian, Spanish, French, etc. In the old times, foreign customers accounted for more than 90% of a restaurant’s clientele. With some improvement measures, the Chinese customers now account for 30% of the entirety nowadays, the Chinese menu being one of the most important reasons.
"Chinese is important for each industry. For example, the movie Ghost was originally translated literally as 《幽靈》，and later as 《第六感生死戀》. Apparently, the latter certified Chinese translation is more appropriate and reflects the meaning of the film. ”Therefore, Chinese descriptions should be simple and concise, elegant and vivid.
After some study, the author found that there are still some problems with the Chinese menu, especially in Western restaurants, where there are various kinds of dessert and pizza. For example, the dessert Crème Brulée, a kind of egg dessert made by caramel, is translated as “烤佈雷”literally, which makes it hard for the readers to understand the food and the ingredient. Aside from Tiramisu, Zabaglione is also one famous Italian dessert, which is made by mixing egg yolk, sugar and Marsala wine until thick, and served in a mild temperature, but it is translated as “薩巴里安尼” in most restaurants which confuses people a lot. Cuba's special dish, Ropa Vieja, is actually a kind of Cuban beef stew, but it is translated as “舊衣服” in Chinese with a very vague meaning.
"Creating Chinese descriptions for western food is indeed a challenge. Miss Yang who occasionally goes to western restaurants told us that she was often stuck in an awkward situation wherein she neither understands the foreign menu nor the Chinese menu even if the waiter explains it to them for several times. Therefore, the appropriate description or illustration is quite important.
"In addition, some restaurants only translate the menu literally without attention to the story behind the dish. For example, Margaret pizza is a traditional Italian pizza with a legendary story: Queen Margaret of England liked the pizza very much, so it was named after her. Again, a typical Australian dessert called Pavlova is one kind of cake made by protein cream, and most restaurants translate it as “帕洛瓦”. In fact, it is the name of one famous Russian ballet dancer. The Australian named this dish in honor of her performances in Australia.”
Flower meaning is to flowers what story is to food. A good certified Chinese translation description creates a vivid picture of the dish and arouses one’s appetite, which will make people willing to pay for it. For example, both the Golden Fish Burger of KFC and Big Mac Fish Burger of McDonalds have similar raw materials, which are the burgers with fried cod and vegetable salad, but with different names. They are vivid and easy to remember, which have already became a standard and used for marketing purposes.