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The unwary tourist falls into a pit if he orders without knowing the price.
Always ask the price first.

Although this practice may seem to be of help for the ignorant or confused tourist, it is often a smokescreen designed to draw the customer's attention away from precisely what is included or is not included in the meal. Always check what the menu or the dish includes - is it meat only or does it include rice, chips, salad etc?

It can be reasonably argued that this practice is pointless - after all when is a 100-gram portion ever served? It can equally be reasonably concluded that this is another tactic to catch the unwary tourist, who assumes that the price quoted is for the portion as served and not for the meaningless small weight.
Read the menu carefully to establish whether or not this is the case. If still in doubt ask the waiter. In any case you should always ask the waiter what the weight of the portion served will be, or order a definite weight… even though it is probable that the actual weight served will be less!

The reasons for leaving blank spaces against the prices are obvious!
It is quite feasible for the different copies of the English language menu on the premises to have different prices against them. The customer orders a dish from a menu with a 'cheap' range of prices (which is the menu offered to the tourist when he orders) but is then surprised to discover from the bill that the dish is more than expected or than he recalls. He therefore requests the waiter to bring the menu to settle the query or dispute. However he is surprised to find that the menu agrees with the price claimed on the bill, because the waiter has fetched another menu with a 'medium' or even 'high' range of prices typed or written in. It is also possible that the waiter has just minutes before picked up a menu with blank spaces against the priced items, and filled in the spaces against the items ordered by the customer to a value that he is now claiming on the bill. (This is another reason why some 'tourist trap' restaurants do not openly display their menus or leave them out on tables, but give customers only a fleeting glimpse of them when ordering. It would be very embarrassing if the menu on the next table has a different range of prices from the menu on your table.)

A caveat here - the customer may believe that by calling for the menu again when the bill is presented he may thwart a rip-off or settle an argument with the waiter - he won't, at least not in his favour. Perhaps the only way to guard against this is to keep the menu with you for the duration of the meal. If this is not possible, you could write down the price yourself when you order the dish, and leave your note on the table so that the waiter clearly sees you are keeping close track of the cost of the meal.

Having a batch of completely separate English language pages instead of English alongside or beneath the local language enables the waiter to see (if he watches you when you study the menu) which language you understand. He is therefore in a better position to ascertain whether or not an overcharge or rip-off will succeed.
The English language translation of the dish may be listed well away from its local language counterpart so as to give the restaurant the opportunity to insert higher prices against the English language translation. (It would seem too blatant, obviously, to set different prices against local language and English language versions of the same dish if the two versions are on the same page, on facing pages, or obviously corresponding pages!)

In being moved away from and unable to be matched with the local menu, it is modified into a misleading rehash and a fudge of the original menu. More insidiously, the local menu and the way it is set out will be definitive and comprehensive and precisely explain what you receive for a price and what is an addition, or a side dish at an extra price. The English language menu, moved away from the pages and set out differently is better able to be deliberately vague and ambiguous on this point and may state or at least imply something that is completely different from the native language menu.


More cynically, the waiter realises that the customer will usually be unable to understand the local language and the proper menu, yet has only an 'airy fairy' fudge of a menu in his own language, and in any case is quite ignorant of what he is reading and ignorant of the local cuisine and the way it is served. In such a situation, a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. The customer and the waiter must therefore inevitably have a discussion about the customer's order and the menu to clarify matters, with the waiter asking the appropriate questions and making the appropriate suggestions (from the waiter's viewpoint - not the customer's). In the ensuing discussion, the waiter can pull flankers on the customer in the way that a printed menu alone cannot.
Do not just hurriedly, in front of the waiter, rush to the English language pages and point ignorantly and vacantly at something at random. Appear confident and knowledgeable about the local cuisine, if possible, and at least know what some of the dishes are in the local language, and how to pronounce them. If you refer to, or at least glance at, the local language menu in front of the waiter he cannot be too sure that he will get away with a rip-off. It is inevitable that if the local language is (say) Czech or especially Hungarian, there is more opportunity for overcharging or rip-offs . . . . . at least if the local language is French, German, Italian or Spanish, even a fairly ignorant tourist can make some sense of the local language menu.