High-cost economy makes a meal of the dining experience

We get it: it’s expensive running a cafe or restaurant. But stop ripping us off.

Is there any other country on the planet where people pay a fortune for the food, only to leave hungry?

Australia is a beautiful country but “boring and expensive”; a nanny state, a rip-off and a place where visitors feel outrage at the cost they are asked to pay for everything. Avoid it and don’t bother. This is according to reviews posted on blogs and websites including TripAdvisor, where travellers rate destinations around the world.

Before you harrumph at the slight, the fact is, whether it be about transport, parking, food, alcohol or even cigarettes, the consistent feedback from inter­national visitors is that the cost of everything here is utterly ridiculous. Your country, your restaurants and venues, your service, they are just not that good, travellers say, and none of it is worth the price.

One reviewer suggests that hard hats and fluoro vests should be handed out at airports, because Australians are so obsessed with safety.

Another says visitors may as well be issued with a list of things that you are not allowed to do, as there are so many rules here that no one is allowed to have any fun.

This is not just about the opinions of others, because there is undeniable data now to prove they are right, and we know it. The True Issues survey released late last year showed that cost of living is the No 1 concern of the Australian citizen.

Concern over the cost of living rates over concerns about everything else, including health and the cost of electricity.

We also say that the government is not responding to our high cost of living adequately because, in that respect, we ranked it in the survey at the very bottom of the scale.

How long will it take before our leaders admit the truth and do something about it? Many people are struggling to meet the basic costs of survival, while others feel that it is just impossible to get ahead, and our daily lives are more stressful and unpleasant than they need to be.

Gratitude and goodwill evaporate as we begrudgingly open our wallets to have them pillaged by everyone, multiple times a day.

Think about, for instance, our leisure time and the meal portions you are served when eating out. Have you noticed the size shrinking during the past year or so? If so, you are not alone.

Putting aside basic pub meals and takeaway, is there any other country on the planet where, in so many restaurants, people routinely sit at the table for hours on end and pay a fortune for the food, only to leave hungry? Personally speaking, I have lost count of the times we have eaten a meal somewhere and returned home afterwards, only to make a sandwich.

When overseas, one simply eats at a good price and goes on to the entertainment venue. Here, though, perhaps because of television shows about food, eating a meal is offered as a form of entertainment, a culinary “experience” we are expected to go on while showing interest and gratitude.

Tasting menus, degustation menus, sharing plates, food that comes when the kitchen has prepared it and not in proper order: these sneaky tactics serve us poorly, and keep us at the table for far too long, at far too high a price.

Every hour or so, a bite-sized morsel of tricked-up food arrives on something that isn’t a plate — a slab of rock, for instance. Here are the candied bush ants on a slice of cornichon, and here is a boring explanation of which school the ants went to, given by the waitperson who rudely interrupts our conversation to deliver it.

Once, I inquired about the dirt on my very precious single piece of rocket. Burnt eggplant dust, I was informed, with a superior toss of the head.

Another time, I asked about the tiny green leaves on my mere tablespoon of ice cream. Oxalis, I was told, harvested off the footpath out the front of the local dentist. Please don’t steal our stash, the waiter implored. Not likely, I thought. Oxalis is a weed and my gardener usually poisons it.

No matter how good the company is, waiting between courses for the next morsel, if it takes too long, is not fun. To pass the time, overpriced grog is ordered and drunk too fast to quell hunger and alleviate anxiety over whether the food, when it arrives, will be enough.

In a move that is out of character, I recently gave the staff at a Yarra Valley winery a good telling-off. We had been there since 7.30pm, and by 10pm multiple beverages had been delivered to people, but only two mouthfuls of food. In a state of exhausted hangryness (hungry anger) I told them that what they were inflicting on us was pure torture, and left.

It must be acknowledged here that cafes and restaurants are feeling the squeeze. Rents, gas and electricity, red tape, government charges, wages — all these costs add up and, as a result, what goes on the plate is shrinking.

This is how a high-cost economy bites business and, in return, the consumer feels the pain. Now we have a situation where all sorts of tricks are being played, with the sole purpose of serving us less and charging us more. The message for our venues is that we are not all stupid; we notice how inhospitable the hospitality sector has become and, as a result, we increasingly will choose to eat at home.