Screw tapas. I hate everything they have come to stand for.

Affordable tapas would be one thing. Delicious tapas would, too. But if they’re neither delicious nor cheap, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to exclaim “Wow, look how small these plates are! No wonder they call ‘em Small Plates!”?

See, if I could be said to have a single pet-peeve when it comes to restaurant fare, it’s when a restaurant subtitutes false exoticism and pseudo-flair for actual quality in the food they serve.

This principle manifests itself in any number of ways. How many times have you ordered something like “Seared Rare Ahi Tuna with a Tomato-Tomatillo Coulis and Wasabi-Chive Aoli” — some potential there, right? — but what you get is a cooked-through slab of dry, beige tuna, some salsa from a jar, and some horseradish sauce with dried chives stirred in?

This all-too-common scenario is pure bullcrap. I believe this happens when the proprietor of a crappy restaurant goes out to a nicer restaurant than his own, sees words like “coulis” and “aoli” on the menu — and the high prices they seem to fetch — and says to himself, “Hey, I can do this!”, and offers up some crap-ass fare on his own menu, dressed up as haute cuisine. It’s like an edible version of that joke about The Aristocrats, told in reverse.

And tapas, in my mind, have become synonymous with this kind of manipulative food presentation. Chefs and owners of not-so-good restaurants have opened their eyes to the fantastic money-making potential of Planet Tapas - where the smaller a portion is, the more you can charge for it; where the more outlandish the name of a dish is, the more desireable it becomes; where a single exotic ingredient can propel what should, by rights, be a free side dish into the $10 and up category.

How about a one-micron-thick sliver of raw tuna with some sesame oil drizzled on top? Sound good? Sure! Well, it’s only $8.00 on Planet Tapas!

Can I tempt you with our Buffalo and Ostrich 6-Bean Tagine? Sure, it’s basically one quarter of what we would normally call a “cup of chili” - but it’s got Ostrich and Buffalo! And it may well have been cooked in a Tagine! WOW! $9.50 for 2 spoonfuls, sucker.

But don’t sweat it - it’s exotic, right? It’s all part of Planet Tapas’ glonus history and cultual. Ha ha - look at the funny-shaped plate-boats! Whee!

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t think bigger is better when it comes to food, and I’m definitely not adverse to paying a lot for excellent fare. But what is happening, I fear, is that “Tapas” is becoming synonymous with “Expensive”, which has a natural affiliation with “Excellent” because people feel a need to justify paying a lot for small quantities of food.

If I ran a diner and served a cut-up hot dog on a plate, with toothpicks, I could probably get away with charging $2.00 for it. But if I called it “Deutcher-Chorizo”, served it with chopsticks, on a funny-shaped plate, and put it in a menu-section called “Tapas” or “Small Plates”, I could probably get away with charging $7.00. Or even more if the chopsticks and/or plate are made from unusual substances like metal or polished olivewood.

Am I off-base here? Maybe I haven’t been to the right Tapas-places. But all I see, whenever I see Tapas on a menu, is a way that the establishment (meaning the restaurant, not the military-industrial complex) has connived to sell me a mediocre appetizer (with a twist!!) for more than it’s worth. And the tapas themselves have never failed to disappoint.

Once again, I love the occasional amuse-bouche or other little fanciful appetizer that’s so delicious that its small size leaves me craving more, charged up for whatever amazing thing will come next. In fact, that’s what I feel the model for an appetizer at a fine dining establishment should be. (There’s a seared-tuna appetizer at Umi that makes me feel this way.)

But let’s let Cheap-Ass Food be cheap-ass food, and let quality be quality. I love a big basket of jalapeno poppers as much as the next guy — but don’t put two of them on a plate with a wet piece of bibb lettuce, call it a “Southeast Asian Chile Relleno Lettuce Wrap”, and charge me an arm and a leg for them.

Because that’s just wrong.