Farewell sweet Tapas...

My current bugaboo is Tapas. Unfortunately for me, it is also my sick little addiction but I am forced to ask - am I addicted to the Tapas or am I addicted to the hype; either way, it's tragic. As my current "love-hate," here's the breakdown - love vs. hate:

Love: because I am a huge fan of the "tasting" and the "sample". I am the one at the table who ends up hating what I ordered and trying to scam bites off of everyone else's plate. I can also NEVER decide what I want and am the consummate restaurant wheeler and dealer; poor Mr. Lemony Lemonade typically gets drafted into my plans (I am quite certain that it was in the vows between love and honour) that typically involve sharing any number of items accross all menu categories . Half an appetizer, plus a quarter of my entree plus part of my salad for part of his prime rib plus a sip of his wine in exchange for my potato, part of my fish and a bite of my dessert. Tapas is therefore, like enforced sharing and tasting - my friends and family are required to engage in my twisted game of indecision and gluttony.

Hate: slavishly following trends and paying the price. Knowing that I am being manipulated and not caring, paying three times the going price for a ridiculously small portion and still not caring. You can't buy this brand of hipness people, oh, sorry, errr, yes in fact you can buy this kind of hipness because apparently, I just did four weeks ago at Kultura. After all, would I really want a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes if they cost $19.99 at Payless, absolument NON! The correlation between expensive and cool is as inevitable as it is pathetic.

The fact that I am blogging about Tapas is a sure sign that its status as the "it-food" has clearly passed, I acknowledge that it is so January '07. That being said, it's still everyhwere and I continue to be awed by the marketing genius behind the devilish little plates of goodness. The concept is fiendeshly simple in its execution - make smaller portions, ask people to buy more and charge them the same price as if they were eating regular sized, single portions - cunning.

Having got my petit rant out of my system and coming clean with my dirty little secret, I can publicly admit that I have personally eaten at three major Tapas locations in T.O., one of which I can't recall so it couldn't have been that good. Without going into specifics, because God knows that I would make a truly pathetic restaurant critic:

Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar
9 Church Street
...really does have amazing french fries as promised although it's more lunchy than dinnery and lunch cost a small fortune (around $100 - ouch!)

Kultura
169 King Street East
...really does have the best ambience but I felt pretentious, nevertheless, I did love the chocolate dessert

As an aside and digression: Baby Brother went to Lee and whole heartedly supports what I have heard about the Black Cod being delish, that being said, I refuse to go because I have seen Susur Lee on a number of television shows and he seems like a bit of a nasty piece of work - and I don't care how good you are at something, you still have to play well with others. The moral of the story is that I won't go to Lee or Susur or any Susur/Lee related locations because I am conscientously objecting to Mr. Lee's fanciness.

Having reached my Tapas rock bottom I am now officially swearing off the stuff - my Tapas shame spiral is at an end and I will endeavour to replace every last dollar frittered away on Tapas back into Baby Girl's college fund.

Having got this monkey off my back, I can say with conviction that Tapas has put the ASS back in dining.