The Tapas Dilemma

By Rupert Truscott-Hughes on December 14, 2011 in Other

I’m not really that big on sharing. I like to look after number one. I’m guessing it probably has something to do with my upbringing as an only child. So when I moved back in to my Bondi penthouse for the warmer months a couple of weeks back (for those of you who don’t often read my piece, I spend winter holed up in Point Piper in front of the wood fire with a glass of Remy in hand before migrating to beautiful Bondi for summer) I was shocked to see the number of ‘tapas-style’ joints that have swung open their doors in the Eastern Beaches.

Assuming that I’m not the first person to ponder this perturbing situation of tapas proliferation I punched ‘the tapas dilemma’ into Google hoping to find that some funky, urban website built for uber cool hipsters (I believe they call them ‘squirrels’ around these parts) and the like may have already exposed this phenomena and I could simply steal some of their amusing anecdotes and pass them off as my own, but unfortunately it seems as though I’m the first to touch on this disturbing topic. I’ve perused Concrete Playground, flicked through the ‘Thousands’ sites and even been on to far more mainstream Huffington Post and Daily Beast news websites, but to no avail.

Fearing that I was going to have to do some thinking for myself, I flicked through to Urban Dictionary as a last resort. I’ve often found that UD has a number of users on my wavelength and once again it produced the goods when I came across Melleh_Timez’s description of tapas, which reads as follows:

Tapas: an unfulfilling, miniscule, whore of a food that is as overpriced as it is unfulfilling. Involves foodstuffs that are halved and then halved and then halved about 10 more times, so that they can be ‘shared’. Wrongly promoted as ‘dinner’ food, it should only ever be considered to be overpriced ‘snack’ food. Only ever acceptable and done properly in Spain.

Melleh_Timez then went on to use ‘tapas’ in a sentence and came up with this:

Friend one: ”Let’s get tapas for dinner.”
Friend two: ”F**k off!”

Tapas ‘parlours’ are quickly usurping Thai restaurants when it comes to the most overplayed culinary hands in this part of the world. It seems that every new place around the east is offering tapas, even Asian joints – and here I was thinking tapas was a Spanish thing.

And I understand that The Beast has a few tapas-toting clients so I apologise if I have offended them in any way. I know that the editors are big fans of Sum Bar and The Flying Squirrel in particular. Personally though, I just want to sit down and enjoy my own meal. Sure, if I’ve got a special lady friend with me I may allow her to have a taste of my risotto but all his sharing is caring crap just makes me sick.

Maybe I’m missing the point. I’m sure people will argue that the whole sharing aspect of tapas is popular because it encourages conversation and allows larger groups to dine together and sample a number of different culinary creations in one sitting. Still, when the bill arrives and you have to fork fifty bucks for some olives, a bit of chorizo and some stale bread, I’d much rather sit quietly on my own and eat a la carte any day. Maybe Melleh_Timez would like to join to me?