What's the difference between tea and dinner? About $150.
What kind of diner are you? A la carte or a blackboard on the side of a van? Valet parking or drive through? Silver service or self serve? Degustation or one with the lot and maximum chips with sauce thanks?
Chances are you're the latter. It appears Australians are noshing up more than ever, but we're also becoming tight-arses when it comes to coughing up in restaurants. According to recent figures, while we're eating out more, spend per head has dropped from $61 to $54. We could dissect that further - but stuff that, let me tell you an anecdote.
An old boyfriend and I used to treat each other to the fanciest restaurant in town for our birthdays. We'd scan the papers and be ear to the ground in order to get the heads up and the jump on the pack. We'd book a table months early at the next big culinary triumph so we had plenty of time to marinate in our smugness.
"What are you doing for your birthday?" "Dinner at the Frozen Walrus Scrotum." "Whoah! I heard it's impossible to get a booking." "It is, that's why we're going." I remember one place we went had the word Workshop in the name.
We went to some posh place called Est Est Est. It was one of those moments when you look at the menu and ask for the one in English and then they tell you the one you're holding is in English. A foam of this, a confit of that on jus served in a deconstructed stack of a dialogue of vegetables, followed by a tepid veloute palate spritz....
I was knackered that night and really had to drag myself out. I yawned the whole way through the procession of tossery. "The mussels are Tasmanian, the spatchcock corn-fed, the truffle smear with the lemon air is served on a bed of handpicked baby mesclun infused with dandelion that's been wafted by a mini trio...."
I did yoga moves in the bathroom to wake myself up. Which was unnecessary: if I wanted to feel a bolt of lightning through me I could have just picked up the bill.
The bill was $300 (this was 1997) and as we wandered back to the car in the crisp autumn air, he said, apropos nothing, "restaurant is from the word restore". I didn't feel restored. I felt ripped off - and I hadn't even paid. And I was starving.
So when it comes to Australians eating out more and paying less, I blame jus. It's sauce, juice or gravy. What's with this jus bullshit, apart from justifying exorbitant prices?
Jus and its ilk started to creep in 20 years ago and sure, we went on the ride for a while but now it seems we're over it. Give us one meat, two veg, some special fried rice and a decent pie and don't you dare call it "gourmet".
Our collective consciousness has suddenly reminded us that eating is what we do so we don't die. And something that gives us pleasure. Not some Olympics of pretension. (Or should that be Jeux Olympiques de Prétention?)
We're onto you lot now. A tasting plate is just code for "stuff we are about to throw out". Smashed avocado, crushed potato, and bruised garlic. Why don't you just admit the green grocer dropped the box on the way in?
Oven baked, pan fried, garden fresh, hand picked? As opposed to what? Guitar baked, filing cabinet fried, pants fresh and arse picked? Twice cooked? Doesn't that just mean reheated in the microwave? So it's a deconstructed apple crumble. Looks like you just couldn't be stuffed putting it together and are veiling apathy with "an intimate interaction with the produce".
We know rustic just means put in an old pot on a chopping board. And what's with the chopping boards? WE GET IT. They arrived just after the giant pepper grinders left.
We're not playing any more and you've only got yourself to blame. Stuff kale. Stuff aioli. Stuff coulis. And particularly, stuff activated almonds.
We're not coming to your restaurant and paying reassuringly expensive prices to convince ourselves we've had a good time. We want stew in the bistro for tea. And a beer. For $20. And make it snappy.
Today's Australians want one meat, two veg, and don't you dare call it 'gourmet'. Photograph: roddennert/PR IMAGE