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An American tourist was shocked when she discovered she’d been charged 10,100 Israeli shekels (£2,335) for a plate of shwarma at a restaurant in Jerusalem.
Laura Ziff shared the story on social media, writing in the Secret Jerusalem Facebook group: “I need help please. Can someone provide the address for a restaurant right by the Jaffa Gate called Old City Shwarma.”
She added: “I was charged approximately $2,900 for one shwarma plate!”
Ziff claimed the owners had made a mistake and promised to refund her credit card on 12 August, but that the money had still not been returned.
Show all 20 1 /20In photos: Street food across Asia In photos: Street food across Asia India A street food vendor waits for customers seated next to a row of brightly-coloured syrup bottles at his street gola (shaved ice) stall, at Girgaon Chowpaty in Mumbai. Gola or barf ka gola or chuski are the most popular street desserts. The ice-based dessert is made by shaving an ice-block and pouring various flavored syrups on to the snow-like crushed ice
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In photos: Street food across Asia Nepal A woman prepares yomari, or Nepalese steamed dumplings, in Lalitpur. Yomari consists of an external cover of rice flour and an inner content of sweets known as chaku and the mild-based khuwa. They sell for about 65 Nepali rupees or 60 US cents per dumpling. The yomari were traditionally prepared as a specialty dish by members of the ethnic Newari community in Nepal for their festival, but demand became so great that they are now sold throughout the year. According to myth Kubera, the Hindu god of wealth and prosperity, liked the yomari so much upon tasting it that he foretold anyone who makes it will be blessed with wealth and prosperity
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In photos: Street food across Asia India A vendor selling seekh kebabs and other non-vegetarian food on Mira Road, in the outskirts of Mumbai. Seekh kebabs are popular, especially among Muslim people. They are made of meat, most often mutton, lamb, beef or chicken, and served with various accompaniments. Kebabs are often cooked on a skewer over a fire like a grill or baked in an oven
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In photos: Street food across Asia Vietnam An elderly street cook cuts lap xuong or Chinese sausage, a traditional ingredient when ordering xoi or sticky rice, at a street food stall in Hanoi. Sticky rice is usually served with meat or egg, but there are many variations, such as sticky rice with steamed chicken, sticky rice with mung beans, sticky rice steamed with peanut, and sticky rice with sliced coconut
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In photos: Street food across Asia Philippines People take a meal at a food stall along a street in Manila. Amid Manila's dense population, ambulant food vendors earn a good profit selling rice porridge mixed with meat, chicken feet, pork intestines, eggs on sticks, and beef stew with rice. Price ranges from 20 cents euro to 50 cents euro
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In photos: Street food across Asia Cambodia Men cook snail soup at the Omega street food restaurant in Koh Pich (Diamond Island) in Phnom Penh. The snail soup is made with lake snails, caught by hand by farmers in the provinces around Phnom Penh. The dish offers customers a traditional provincial style of food compared to the majority of restaurants in Cambodia that offer Chinese, western or neighboring Asian nations cuisine, only a few offer traditional Cambodian fare. The restaurant specialises in cooking snail soup and steamed frog with small rocks
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In photos: Street food across Asia Myanmar A woman puts a betel package, called quid, into her mouth made and sold at a street stall in Naypyitaw. Betel quids, known as Kunya, are very popular in Myanmar, made of tobacco and small pieces of betel nut wrapped in a betel leaf and spread with a lime paste that are placed into the mouth to suck and chew. Betel is the seed of the Areca palm, and while it's consumption is common in Asia and the Pacific, it is banned in many western countries due to its negative health effects. It also leads to the red stained teeth and mouths, and the red pavement spit that goes along with the experience
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In photos: Street food across Asia Philippines La Loma district, in Manila, is famous for its roasted pig stores known as Lechon, a popular Filipino delicacy. Lechon is the Spanish word for a young suckling pig, that is then slowly roasted over charcoal. Lechon is often cooked during national festivities, the holiday season, and other special occasions such as weddings, graduations, birthdays and baptisms, or family get-togethers
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In photos: Street food across Asia Indonesia Women sit as they eat bakso at a street in Depok. Bakso consists of meatballs and noodles mixed with tofu, mustard greens, fried onions and chili sauce. It is one of the most popular street foods in Indonesia
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In photos: Street food across Asia China A street vendor prepares deep-fried curry fish balls, a street snack especially loved by young people, in Mong Kok, a busy night life district of Kowloon in Hong Kong. Since the so-called ' fish ball revolution' riot in Mong Kok in 2016, where a crowd of New Year revellers tried to push a cart of boiling oil towards health officials who were checking for unlicensed street hawkers, the snack has also become a symbol of identity of the Hong Kong people's resistance to perceived creeping authoritarianism from China. Traditionally, fish balls were made of local fish species once widely available in Hong Kong waters. However, due to over-fishing and the industrialisation of food production, the iconic snack is now said to contain only 20 per cent fish or less, with substitute ingredients such as flour, chemical enhancers, pork and lard sometimes making up the bulk of the product. Despite this, in 2012, local media Apple Daily reported that 375,000,000 fish balls were consumed per day
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In photos: Street food across Asia Thailand A vendor arranges fried insects on her street food cart on Khao San Road in Bangkok. The road houses many kinds of food but the most popular are fresh fruits, fried insects and pad thai. Fried insects attract the attention of tourists from all over the world. Bugs have been on the menu in Thailand for ages but a few years ago they have migrated from the forests to commercial farms and factories. The most popular method of preparation is to deep-fry crickets in oil and then sprinkle them with lemongrass slivers and chilis. They are crunchy and taste like fried shrimp. Pad thai is a stir-fried rice noodle dish commonly served as street food and at most restaurants in Thailand
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In photos: Street food across Asia China A man sells baozi, or Chinese steamed meat buns, at a business district in Beijing. The traditional Chinese dish is commonly eaten as breakfast. The baozi are steamed over high heat in a bamboo steamer. According to the legend, baozi has a long history, as it was invented by the Chinese military strategist Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms period (third century AD)
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In photos: Street food across Asia Singapore A vendor cooking satay meat skewers at her stall in the Lau Pa Sat food centre. Singapore has announced that it will be nominating its hawker culture, comprising over 6,000 hawkers who provide street food local dishes, for a Unesco's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Hawker centres were started in the 1970s in Singapore by moving street vendors into purpose-built facilities. There are over 110 such hawker centres in the country. The announcement is reported to have angered some Malaysians, as both nations share a long street food culture heritage and similar dishes
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In photos: Street food across Asia Indonesia A bowl of bakso
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In photos: Street food across Asia Nepal A woman makes yomari in Lalitpur
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In photos: Street food across Asia India A street food vendor sells a variety of common street snacks in Kolkata
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In photos: Street food across Asia Philippines A vendor fries duck at a street stall in Binangonan, Rizal province. The duck is deep fried after a boiling process with garlic, onions and other spices, resulting in its trademark of crispy duck skin and meat
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In photos: Street food across Asia China A seller prepares chuan on a skewer at the Wangfujing food market in Beijing. Chuan, pronounced as chwan, are small pieces of meat, but on rare occasions can be seafood, roasted on skewers. The food originated from the Xinjiang region of China and has been spread all across China's cities, where street food is popular. Usually, it is cooked with spices like dried red or black pepper, salt, cumin seeds, and with sesame oil, and sometimes served with small round bread
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In photos: Street food across Asia Malaysia Nasi lemak is a Malay fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf. Traditionally, Nasi lemak is served with a sambal (hot spicy sauce) and usually includes various garnishes, including fresh cucumber slices, small fried anchovies, roasted peanuts, and hard-boiled or fried egg
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In photos: Street food across Asia Vietnam A street food chef prepares bang trang nuong or Vietnamese pizza at a street food stall in Hanoi. Vietnamese pizza is a thin sheet of rice paper with many kinds of toppings, such as beaten egg, sausage, cheese, dried pork, and is a popular Vietnamese street food
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The owners maintain the overcharging was a mistake.
Laura Ziff's Facebook post
(Facebook/Laura Ziff)
In an updated post on 2 September, Ziff said the owners had apologised and were “working with their bank” to make the refund happen.
“I contacted my credit card company and they provided some additional information that should assist [the owners] in making the refund happen very quickly,” she said.
It’s not the first case of a tourist being overcharged at a restaurant.
In May 2019 an American tourist was left shocked after being presented with an €836 (£738) bill for some calamari and beers at a restaurant in Mykonos .
The visitor from Brooklyn shared a picture of the bill from DK Oyster restaurant on TripAdvisor.
“This place is a rip off,” he wrote. “The staff is not honest and refuse to provide a menu and prices. AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS! No pun intended.”
The bill shows the group were charged €591 for six plates of calamari, working out at €98.50 per serving; €150 for six local beers (€25 per drink); and €59.40 for three chicken Caesar salads (€19.80 per salad).
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