You might think this happened to me. It didn't. I don't typically like tasting menus.
It happened to Mike "Timex" McDonald, and has brought forth a lot of Twitter debate.
https://twitter.com/twt/status/1165105784553799682
https://twitter.com/twt/status/1165324480815591425
https://twitter.com/twt/status/1165324997591588864
https://twitter.com/twt/status/1165325543312519168
https://twitter.com/twt/status/1165326255807295488
For those of you who aren't familiar, a "tasting menu" consists of a number of small-portion items (pre-selected by the chef), where you get a "taste" of a lot of things. Usually it's 4-7 items, and by the end, you approximately end up with one full meal's portion when you add everything up. Needless to say, the portions of each individual item are quite small, and thus a 7-course tasting menu is never equivalent to the cost of seven entrees. Additionally, some restaurants do not even offer tasting menu items as entrees, so as to prevent such comparisons from being made.
Mike McDonald went to do a tasting menu at a tapas place. Tapas entree portions are also smaller, but typically bigger than 7-course tasting menu portions -- approximately double the size in most cases.
When the whole thing was over, Mike discovered that ordering all seven tasting menu courses individually -- which also would have been a lot bigger (probably double the size) -- would have been CHEAPER than ordering the tasting menu!
He also was unhappy that the waiter aggressively pushed the tasting menu, presumably knowing that the restaurant was pulling this trick.
The tasting menu was $130 (Canadian) for 7 tasting-size items, while ordering them individually would have been $116 for the same 7 tapas-size (larger) items. So he paid about 11% MORE to get significantly LESS food!
What would you have done in his shoes?
Keep in mind that Mike McDonald is very rich.
Daniel Negreanu felt that McDonald was sweating the small stuff, and in fact shouldn't even have tried to add up the costs to discover this!
https://twitter.com/twt/status/1165106510881415168
Negreanu got mostly beaten down in response here, including by some other rich guys like Brian Hastings and Haralabob Voulgaris.
Vote above what you would have done in this spot, while dining with your (long term) girlfriend.