Foreign restaurants (including many Chinese restaurants abroad) generally have only a lot of words in their menus, while domestic restaurants (except some high-end western food) feel it is absolutely unacceptable if they don't have pictures. According to my observation, there are three main reasons for this difference:

1) The cultivation of existing cultural habits, that is to say, everyone doesn't map, so I simply don't map, or everyone maps, so I have to map;

2) For the different understanding of the difference between pictures and real dishes, Westerners think that if the dishes on the table don't match the pictures, China people think that the more beautiful the pictures, the better, and it doesn't matter whether the objects and pictures are the same;

3) Chefs in foreign (mature markets) restaurants advocate seasonal ingredients and creativity, so the menu changes more frequently than those in domestic restaurants, so it is more convenient to use text menus for subsequent updates.

Of course, according to my observation, restaurants at home and abroad now tend to merge and learn from each other on menu issues.

In China, menus are all with pictures. This advantage is too crucial and unique. It is used to it in China. It seems nothing special, right? However, why do China people insist on rushing to eat Chinese restaurants when traveling abroad? Let's enjoy the menu style of Italian restaurants: like this.

This is the tip of the iceberg. The unpredictable menu of Europeans is full of proper nouns of various ingredients, just to tell you the name of this dish and the main raw materials in it, and restaurants in almost all European countries are so beautiful.

As a result, you have no idea what kind of ghost this little cutie might look like when you order. It may really be a dark dish that you have never seen before and will never see again.

"Beef with Pepper and White Kidney Beans in Prune Tower" is a dish name randomly selected from the Italian menu. Regardless of whether it will taste good, I will ask if you dare to try it when you see it on the menu.

On the other hand, the menu of my big China restaurant:

Although shabby, it seems unremarkable, but in a foreign country, watching all kinds of intimate pictures, regardless of whether you have eaten or not, will you have a feeling of tears when you order a few WYSIWYG dishes?

Being in China, I can order food with a picture for every meal I go out to eat. The benefits are too great!