cheese only

My American friend, Danielle, and I decided to try out the new pizza place near our school tonight. Its just a tiny little shop with a few tables and lots of pictures of pretty legit-looking pizza on the walls. We sat down, Chinese menu in hand, and attempted to decipher enough to figure out which pizza to order. Unfortunately, we didn't recognize enough characters to do any good, so we decided to just order a cheese pizza- simple and safe. There were 5 or 6 people who may or may not have been restaurant staff standing around, including one guy who could speak a little English. We tried ordering a pizza with cheese only, but something was definitely lost in translation so I called my friend who told him what we wanted. After a long process involving way too many people, our pizza was ordered. A while later, our much-anticipated cheese pizza was unveiled. To our surprise, "cheese only" was taken very literally and there wasn't a drop of sauce on it. Just crust covered in a ridiculously thick layer of mozzarella. I tried to comfort Danielle by saying it was just like a cheese bread stick. But, she really felt the need for sauce so we debated whether we could ask for some. Since the only word we knew that was remotely related was tomato, we used the dictionary word for tomato sauce but the girl didn't understand...not sure if it was the wrong word or if my Chinese is truly that bad. So after lots of tries, playing charades (Danielle pretending to spread a pizza with sauce), and Danielle standing in a chair to point to a picture of pizza high up on the wall, the English speaking guy declared that he knew. He came back with a pack of ketchup. Good guess, but not quite. That's probably what they use instead of sauce, but we decided "cheese only" beat ketchup. About 1 1/2 pieces in, the feeling in our stomachs told us what a really bad idea it was to eat that. We couldn't eat anymore, so we went to pay for it. The most expensive pizza on the menu was 25 kuai, but our bill was 57!! Why? The pizzas on the menu don't have cheese, and all ours had was cheese. Oh. So, 57 kuai poorer and sick as dogs, we dragged ourselves out of the shop and to the bus stop, all the way groaning, laughing, and declaring what a horrible idea it was to go there. Danielle said, "That is the first time in my life that 2 pieces of pizza put me over the edge." Not sure if I'll go back and try again, but I feel like if I do it will be a looong time from now. :)