Shares Well With Others
Communal eating can be a wonderful, even joyous, event. I love to have some friends over and heap meat on the barbie, or to get a group together and split a bunch of dishes in a restaurant in Chinatown. I even enjoy an occasional fondue.

When it comes to tapas though, something has gone horribly wrong. The proof: last weekend I spent $20 on a dinner that consisted of three wedges of Turkish bread, four small boiled potatoes and half a meatball.

The concept is sound. There are a dozen or more choices on the menu. You pick and choose a few to share. You get to sample a little of everything. But the portions are always too small and it becomes a polite game of how to grab more for yourself without looking as though you're being greedy. That is until it becomes clear that these little bits of food in their small, child-sized bowls and plates will never be enough to satisfy the entire group. Then it becomes war, every hungry diner for his and herself.

Is that last piece of fried goat's cheese being claimed by anyone? Quick! Stick it with your fork and pop it straight in your mouth before someone else sees it! It doesn't matter if you didn't like it or even if you're allergic, you just have to eat something before all that's left is the gargantuan bill.

The Conspiracy Uncovered!
Don't think for one minute that the tapas people are blind to the flaws in the system. They're well aware that there's no fair way to split three pieces of chicken among four people. But they continue to toy with us, sending out continually shrinking portions, laughing diabolically as they imagine the friendships and romances they have ruined by forcing one person to decline a share of the blackened red snapper to make things simpler for everyone else! The tapas people (perhaps better described as an 'organization' or 'syndicate', and they know who they are) know that no matter how much someone insists that they're perfectly happy with just the chorizo and lentils, really they resent being left out and will be grumpy the rest of the night, listening to the grumbling from the empty spot in their stomach.

So why do they force us into such an uncomfortable social mealtime situation? Why force us to choose between acting gracefully or greedily spearing the last olive? Well, have a look at these prices. The method for setting dollar amounts seems to be to double the money for half the food of a regular restaurant. For $18 at a tapas bar you can get a side of marinated mushrooms and tomatoes. Just about anywhere else, $18 will get you the same mushrooms and tomatoes with an entire chicken or steak under it, fries or mashed potatoes, a salad and a drink.

Still, tapas continues to be popular, and not just with those who feel hip saying, 'Oh yes, I know the most chic little place for tapas, I really must take you sometime. It's darling. You'll love it.'

The way I figure it, the only possible way tapas makes sense is in one of these cases:

1. You have no problem with dropping $40 or more, per person, on a meal. This could mean that you are independently wealthy or maybe you have a really good sugar daddy (or mommy) thing going. If so, bravo!
2. You have a full meal at home before going out, so that you are eating just to be sociable and not for the purpose of sustenance. This could be the case for men and women who don't like to be seen gorging in public, but who will instead go home at the end of the night and have a microwave pizza and M&M's.
3. You're the guy who will take the last serving of everything for yourself, with a rhetorical "Nobody else wants this, right?" unaware or just not bothered that the person next to you has only had half a meatball for dinner.

I really hate that guy.