A few months into this expat thang, my friend "Blad" and I went to an izakaya and, equipped with a few phrases and a working knowledge of hiragana and katakana, ordered "Yakitori!"
The waiter made a funny face asked a few questions we couldn't understand, so we said, "Yakitori KUDASAI!" and felt triumphant.
About 40 minutes later, the waiter brought out two skippy skewers of chicken.
"This isn't going to do it," I said to my friend and suggested ordering some more.
He replied, "Let's just go home."
Two months later and now equipped with a few kanji and a few more phrases, we went to a proper yakitori-ya and I'll be damned if we could read even 5% of the menu.
On one of the boards, there was something written in katakana, which HAD to be something western, so we ordered that.
15 minutes later a black, winged animal with a skewer through its head and eyeballs staring back at us was brought to our table.
What the hell is this?!?!
In that great democratic tradition, we jankened to see who would be the jackass who had to eat it.
Blad lost.
As he bit into it, I asked how it tasted.
"Crunchy."
Defeated, we returned home where I consulted my dictionary which informed me that スズメ was not bat as we suspected, but sparrow.
Live and burn.
Despite losing limbs every time I stepped on a landmine like that, I miss the adventure. You learned something every day, or you went home.