La Cantina Palacio.

Perisur, Mexico City.

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the national drink of Mexico, Tequila! What better way to enjoy the festivities than with a tasting featuring some of the best tequilas around! We will be serving Mexican inspired tapas to compliment the spirit tasting. Our friend and Tequila aficionado, Robert Hernandez will be here to tell us more about each offering and how tequila is made.

In Mexico, the most traditional way to drink tequila is neat, without lime or salt. We do things a little differently in the States!

I hate Tapas. Let me rephrase: I hate the word 'Tapas'. Allow me to elaborate: I hate the abuse and exploitation of the word in Australia.  

It is supposed to be tiny appetizers before a proper main meal: olives, chorizo sausages, marinated anchovies at 1 or 2 Euros per dish, the equivalent of cold dish like pig's ears and shredded beadcurd skins of Sze Chuan cuisine; the edamame beans and agedashi tofu of Japanese food. 

But in Australia, Tapas simply meant 'reduced portion food at double the price'.

And how does the food industry sugar coat this? By introducing another frequently abused word: Sharing.

Every time I see a menu that starts with 'At Expensivito we encourage our patrons to share..' I roll my eyes, take one big gulp from my glass of tap water, and assume the brace position. 

I saw a Nando's commercial the other day encouraging me to 'eat interestingly' by, cue drumroll, sharing. You know it's bad (and lucrative) when fast food franchises are adapting the same attitude. 

It's too late to do anything now. We as a whole allowed that to happen. The first time your girlfriends screamed at the foreign word, and thought it was ok to pay twice as much for some Spanish food they've never heard of, and we agreed, the game was over.  

The word has even mutated. I walked past a restaurant the other day and saw what was perhaps the filthiest, most disgusting, gang-banging food glossary I've ever seen for a long time: