This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared on our publisher Joe Ragazzo’s newsletter, Rhapsody.
Hmmmmm…have been many times in various areas of Spain (including a week in Granada while working with folks from the University of Granada) and this is the first I have heard of °free tapas.“
Unless, of course, they mean you get a small bowl of olives or similar with your drink, like chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant in the US or a few slices of baguette.
Would love to hear where the tapas are free for my next trip. 
(The changing of cultures bit I do agree with heartily though.)
Great stuff here.
I have nothing profound to add to this, just that, speaking of “restaurant culture,” I remember being a bit bewildered, on my first trip to Mexico, having to ask for the check (rather than having it presented to me after the perfunctory offer of dessert). Now, of course, I love that because I quickly understood that in Mexico the emphasis isn’t on seating as many patrons as possible but, rather, on eating as part of a larger social/cultural interaction. Why on earth would you want to rush people through that?
Here’s where they went in the episode:
Unfortunately, seems like one of the places has since closed.
Many years ago, when I visited Guadeloupe, I noted that the national beverage, 'tit Punch, which is made up of rum, water, sugar, lime and ice, is served on a tray with glasses into which you pour your own. Even in bars and restaurants. Tourists, however, would ordinarily be served a pre-measured drink because they didn’t have enough sense or manners to pour a reasonable amount.
Also, in the late afternoon, people would gather to share punch (punch is rum mixed with fruit/juice; 'tit punch is one kind) and acras (fish fritters) would be served as a go with, free. So similar to tapas and drinks in Spain.
Alligator Lounge in Brooklyn is the closest I’ve seen, serving a free brick oven personal pizza with every drink. Truly a paradise.
A small appetizer plate is traditional, similar, as I mentioned above, to chips and salsa or bread and butter in the US. But tapas on the menu are paid for, usually quite small prices (because of small portions) per portion — roughly 4€ to 10€ per saucer, although when you make a meal of tapas you very often end up easily spending more than for a regular meal (but the variety is worth it).
ETA: in the photo accompanying the article the stuff on the menu are all pretty typical Spanish tapas — you can tell by what they are (chips, olives, fish, shrimp, potatoes, etc,) as well as the prices, ranging from 3.75€ to 10,95€…. Also, you can see the guy eating has several small plates in front of him.
When I waited tables and bartended in the 1980’s and early 90’s in Philadelphia, I never gave a table the check until they asked for it.
Here in Europe it is considered impolite, if not downright offensive, for the server to offer you the check before you request it. If it‘s close to closing time and you are the last customer, they might gently remind you that they are closing down, giving you a chance to request the check, but never, never, never would they slap a check down on the table.
Had a fabulous meal one evening with colleagues at a lovely restaurant on the hillside facing the illuminated Alhambra. Great food and the atmosphere was fabulous. Many lovely places to eat in Granada…
(Couldn‘t get into the Alhambra because you have to book months in advance. Have to do it on my trip that way!)
My brother and I went in January 1990. We didn’t book anything, but we also basically roamed around aimlessly.
We did a month of Spain, then a month of Morocco. I went back to Morocco in June…to see about a boy 
Lucky you! Sadly, I didn‘t realize how popular it was (also because of safety, they regulate the number of visitors) and so didn‘t look into tickets until way too late. But it did look absolutely fabulous across the ravine all lit up at night, like a film set!
OT but definitely of interest to many here:
I totally reject the notion of a “Chain of Beings.” There is no hierarchy in the world – everything on the planet is equally part of a net of interdependent phenomena, and everything contains the same basic matter. Think of a spider web with the dew drops collecting at the intersections of the thread. That is my belief. And this:
“Plainness”
The garden’s grillwork gate
opens with the ease of a page
in a much thumbed book,
and once inside, our eyes
have no need to dwell on objects
already fixed and exact in memory.
Here habits and minds and the private language
all families invent
are everyday things to me.
What necessity is there to speak
or pretend to be someone else?
The whole house knows me,
they’re aware of my worries and weakness.
This is the best that can happen–
what Heaven perhaps will grant us:
not to be wondered at or required to succeed
but simply to be let in
as part of an undeniable Reality,
like stones of the road, like trees.
(translated from the Spanish by Norman Thomas di Giovanni)
Yes, we were!
We prepared for almost a year for the trip, but we were still so unprepared. Our Spanish sucked, and there was so much that we did not know. It seems that reading Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and watching Pedro Almodóvar films wasn’t enough.
Only time I was in Spain, 1973, I do remember having free tapas in Madrid. It was such a welcomed surprise.
My most unusual experience in dining was a pay-as-you-can restaurant in Munich in 1974. It was probably in the Schwabing area. It was run by a bunch of communists who left it up to you to go to the cash box and put in what you thought you owed. I was flummoxed. As a poor student I was tempted to grift them, but my conscience pushed me to to pay up. And the food was good!
The one thing that I had a hard time getting used to was that it was expected of us to spit the olive pits onto the floor. Though by the end of our trip, we got quite good at it.
Good Korean restaurants in the US will give free plates of kimchi and other banchan (“side dishes”) with every meal, though I don’t think you get it when you just order a drink. I don’t think that pricing model is so out of the question.
If Upchuck Toad is leaving MTP, there just may be a god after all.
