When In Rome

I do not want

To eat Pizza Hut in Beijing

Give me a hand-drawn Chinese menu

(Prices double in the English version, but still cheap)

Grease-stained and yellowed ideograms

Where they skin the snake you eat before your eyes

And thick jasmine tea breaks up the oil of your meal

I have no desire

To go for KFC in Cairo

Show me an Arabic menu board

(Prices double in the English version, but still cheap)

Only offering water, koshary, and rice pudding, all misspelled

Spicy pasta, falafel, or pickle bread

Washed down with cold water or hot hibiscus tea

I can do without

Fancy bistro pastas with European names

Hand me a Japanese lacquered menu

(Prices the same in the English version, but still not cheap)

Good sushi, or okonomiyai pancakes, or miso soup

Barley rice, radish pickles, or tofu and ginger

Then sit and warm my hands with steaming green tea