How Not to Order Dinner in Another Language

I've never considered myself very adventurous. In fact, I actually think that I can be a stick in the mud at times. Like I've always been wary of traveling to far away places with hard to identify foods. Come on we all know I live to eat. Then there's also the language barrier. Oy ve. Can you imagine thinking you ordered chicken and they bring out a goat's head or cow liver? I say all this to say that is almost exactly what happened to us in the restaurant. The lone Cape Verdean in the group wasn't with us for lunch so we had to make do on our own. 

Take a look at the menu and see if you can figure out what's what.

This is before we took a look at the menu

I was so sure that polvo is chicken. Nope my friends, polvo is octopus.

This is polvo! (Can you imagine the waiter putting this in front of you when you thought you were ordering chicken?)

Bacalhau (saltfish)

Grilled chicken

Nothing like a long walk home to help you digest your lunch

 To make a long story short, there was a sweet woman in the restaurant who spoke French and Cape Verdean, so she translated for our group and helped us put our orders in.