By: Katie Borders

Opinion Editor

I will never understand how expensive restaurants get away with charging ten dollars per bite of food. It truly boggles me and makes me wonder how they can even get away with such a rip-off. What’s even worse is that the more expensive the dish is, the smaller the plate of food is! It’s like these owners think, “Well, I’m going to charge $55 for this tiny dish of halibut and spinach,” which, somehow equates to, “the more expensive the dish, the smaller the serving has to be, but then of course, the bigger the plate has to be.” 

It seems that the formula for expensive restaurants follows: More expensive dish = smaller portion + served on giant plate + drown portion in sauce + smear sauce around plate in swirls + add a leaf or two onto the plate to take up space. 

I’ve observed that the “using big plates and putting a small portion in the middle and drowning the food in sauce” method appears to be a go-to for many expensive restaurants. However, it is even more absurd when they put a random leaf or flower on top, thinking that it will make up for the lack of food. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have an extra grain or two of rice (maybe three grains if they are feeling generous) added instead of a leaf that I can’t eat!

Another method to brainwash people into paying exorbitant sums of money for a small portion of food is the “slap lots of fancy sounding ingredients onto the menu.” Admittedly, a dish sounds more appealing when you don’t even know what’s in it. However, there are only so many times one can fall victim to this tricky method.

The cherry on top, though, is not the methods these restaurants use to make you pay ludicrous sums of money for a couple bites, but that, oftentimes, expensive food doesn’t even taste very good! Normally, the odd flavors of the dish and the conscious awareness that each bite is equivalent to about eight dollars and twenty-five cents (give or take) is enough to make the food not as enjoyable as it could be. I genuinely am not sure if the people who create these fancy dishes believe the flavors go well together, but as an avid food eater, I frankly hate expensive food (if you couldn’t guess already).

I have never eaten at an expensive restaurant that I’ve liked, and no one can disagree with me when I say that In-n-Out, with its two dollar and ten cent burgers, is better than expensive food any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

So, the next time you find yourself wanting to eat out at a restaurant, keep in mind the ridiculous methods expensive restaurants use to squeeze as much money as possible out of you, and go to In-n-Out instead!