How to order a decent meal when overseas

Many years back in my student days I hitchhiked home from Greece. Whilst hitching through southern Italy I found myself in the city of Foggia one night. Starving hungry after a day on the road and living on a meagre budget I set off in search of a filling meal. Chance would have it I passed by a small local place that looked like someone's front room and inside were a group of lads tucking into sizeable plates of delicious looking pasta, so I ventured in and seated myself. The proprietress came over and spoke no word of english (and I scarcely a word of Italian) and gave me a handwritten Italian menu. I was clueless as to what the menu said but figured I couldn't go too far wrong based on what was being eaten. So I randomly pointed to one of the dishes on the menu and sat back to salivate over impending culinary nirvana. What materialised was a plate of three small bony fish! Oh, how I cursed my stupidity - why had I not just pointed at what the others had? A travel lesson learnt.

Fast forward 15 years and Tracey and I had stopped in for breakfast at a Bulgarian truck stop overlooking the River Danube. We ordered some bread and salad dishes which we were enjoying (in the relative scheme of things) when two truck drivers came in, ordered food and sat down near us. A few minutes later the waitress came over to them with two bowls of steamy, delicious looking soup. Now THAT's more like what I wanted. So, recalling my Italian experience I went over to the waitress, pointed to the truckers eating soup and indicated I wanted some of what they had. My cunning plan was then thrown as she responded with three choices of soup - all incomprehensible to me, so I opted for the last choice as it was the only one I had any hope of pronouncing. After ordering I sat down with a smug look on my face joyfully anticipating my meal. After some minutes the waitress emerged with a steaming bowl of soup. Fantastic, what a learned traveller I am I thought as I plunged my spoon into the broth and discovered ........... TRIPE SOUP!! Bollocks.