Beijing restaurant serves "Wikipedia"

Jim Benson enjoyed his "stir-fried wikipedia," served at a restaurant in Beijing. Link (Via Japundit) (Thanks, Len!)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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mano negra

Here are two more: http://sexybeijing.tv/new/eblog/default.asp?view=plink&id=127
http://flickr.com/photos/goodape/460763315/
codeman38

SPT3125: Y’know, I think you’re on to something here. The first result for “é±¿é±¼” (squid), as seen in #18, is also from Wikipedia.
Robert

Wasn’t there a move by China to stamp out bad English translations ahead of the Olympics?
acb

This is not the first time this has happened; two years ago, a French restaurant in Taiwan listed cheesecake as “wikipedia”.
Doomstalk

Wikipedia is a dish best served cold… or is that revenge? I always get those two mixed up.
Adam Rakunas

Better that than the Farked Noodles.
Anonymous

The Wiktionary article for this (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/é¸¡æžž) includes the following:

References
é¸¡æžž on the Mandarin Wikipedia.

This is a plausible origin of this.
woolie

What machine translation program is causing these strange errors I wonder? I asked a chinese friend — one instance was “chicken”, another instance was “squid” (the one linked in the comments.)
Tedly Teddington

I’ve had their wikipedia. It’s almost as good as Lunchballz!
Sudasana

The work they’re translating as “wikipedia” is é›žæ¨… jicong, apparently a type of fungus native to Yunnan province. Google translate gives “Zongyang”, and there’s no English Wikipedia page on it, so it’s a mystery where that word was pulled from. Picture here.
Registrado

Does it come with Jimmy Wales’ Own Special Sauce?
JoshuaZ

Wow, and only a few days about a recent Questionable Content that advertised a similar food:

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1023
JY Yang

@ï¼ƒ2 posted by Sudasana:

After linking seemed to imply that the scientific name of the fungus in question is either Collybia albuminosa or Termitomyces albuminosus, or… “chicken flavored mushroom”. No, not very scientific. In any case it’s some kind of rare fungus that only grows in the mountains of the Yunnan province. Nothing to shed light on how they came up with ‘wikipedia’. é¸¡æžž looks just like ‘chicken fungus’ to me.

Apparently one of the other names for it is “chicken foot mushroom” so maybe that’s where the ‘pedia’ part came from?
JKG

I bet its del.icio.us
jahknow

http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order/

You haven’t lived until you’ve had #1313, the “Benumbed hot vegetables fries fuck silk.”
Nora

The steamed egg dish that anyone can edit!
Tian

That is nothing. I dare you to try this “fuck the frog rice” dish from a cafe in Shanghai, China:

http://www.tian.cc/2007/11/fuckthefrogrice.html
W. James Au

If you don’t agree with the vegetables in the stir fry Wikipedia, you can remove them and add your own, and your changes will be tracked with a grease pencil on the tablecloth. Careful, because the kitchen staff will vote on your additions, and if you can’t provide a source for your veggies, they’ll quickly restore your plate to its original form.
Halloween Jack

I’d like mine with troll eyes, vowels on the side.
Anonymous

Iâ€™m sure this was anything but the quality translation they were after. Who would have thought Wikipedia would be a popular cooking ingredient? This is the difference between relying on an automated translation tool and an actual translation agency. Professional language specialists would never have allowed this mistake to happen, as funny as it may be. Well maybe itâ€™s something they may now consider if they ever decide to co
Dan

That’s an especially baffling case of Engrish run amok.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Jy Yang (5):

é¸¡æžž looks just like ‘chicken fungus’ to me.
Apparently one of the other names for it is “chicken foot mushroom” so maybe that’s where the ‘pedia’ part came from?

Right! It’s Chikipedia!
doktor tchock

to #12 – congrats, you got an audible laugh out of me. good show, good show.
tp1024

Now that’s an easy one. “Per pedes” means to walk by foot. Pedes obviously means something like foot. And getting from pedia to pedes to foot to a chinese “chicken foot mushroom” should be obvious … ;)

Since both “pedia” and “pedes” are of latin origin it could have been mixed up somehow. Try translating something to chinese and have it read back to you in english – you’ll probably do worse. ;) If you really don’t want to be understood: instead of writing, try reading it out aloud.
Patapete

Now you can have your wiki and eat it too!
spt3125

I think i may have found a plausible explanation:

Google “é›žæ¨…”. Scroll down a bit, and what word jumps out at you?

The first search result* to have any English words in its title is “é›žæ¨…- Wikipedia”.

It’s easy to imagine a non-English speaker seeing this and mistaking it for a translation!

This also works for #24′s cheesecake (èµ·å£«è›‹ç³•). Probably explains the other cases as well, since Wikipedia often comes up near the top in a Google search for a single word or common phrase.

*(Interestingly, the Wikipedia link is in the top 10 search results when you use Google in English or Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), but with Google in Simplified Chinese (as used in mainland China) it’s on like the 5th page of search results.)

#22′s Wekipidia bread has me truly baffled, though…
semiotix

The fine print is troubling:

“The tastiness of this item is disputed. Please see the waiter for a discussion. It has been suggested that this item be merged with ‘an order of spring rolls.’”
js7a

[tasting needed]
xiaosquared

I saw BBW Wikipedia at a restaurant in Dalian this summer.

http://web.mit.edu/x_x/www/uploaded_images/CIMG0912-781329.JPG

It turned out that it was squid. Here’s me with a plate of it: http://web.mit.edu/x_x/www/uploaded_images/CIMG0844-750896.JPG
Paul D

And here I thought Wikipedia was banned in China. It turns out you can get it fresh in Beijing restaurants!
Hjalprek

I find those mushrooms far too radical for my liking. Can I have stir-fried ‘conservapedia’ please?
Sudasana

Maybe this is just the English translation company stumped for a word and putting in something that’s obscure enough (among Chinese restaurant managers anyway) to pass for the correct English translation? It would be familiar to anyone using the internet to look up translations, and if it’s being used to translate squid of all things then the feet->pedia connection seems less likely.