AN Israeli fast-food chicken restaurant left a bad taste in Jerusalem's mouth when it peppered the holy city with obscene advertisements.

"Who the f... is Chacko?" screamed dozens of billboards put up on Wednesday in the city sacred to the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. Thousands of angry residents telephoned the Jerusalem municipality with the same question and demanded the city remove the offensive signs.

The city ordered the Sigawi advertising agency and its client, Chacko, a kosher chicken-and-sandwich eatery which opened two weeks ago, to withdraw the advertisements. They did. Sigawi president, Meni Sigawi, said the contentious slogan was a translation of a much milder Hebrew phrase and a play on a popular song.