I've encountered it just twice, and I was caught the second time because it had not occurred to me that a second restaurant would be so short-sighted to charge separately for each vegetable. Now I'll ask before booking. At the second restaurant I was left with a $34 piece of duck on a big white plate, and when I asked the waitress if the vegetables were on their way she told me with a pleasant lilt that I should have ordered sides! At $8 or $9 each.

This belated disclosure followed an entree that was more about art than food, and so my expectation of an actual meal had been much too ambitious. I must say that the duck was magnificent.

What's behind it? It's touted as designer dining, where the diner assembles the protein, the carbohydrate and the vegetable or salad, and the restaurateur assembles the bill. Perhaps it is seen as a new height of sophistication by people of the same ilk as those who went into raptures over a seriously expensive morsel on a massive white plate. I'm inclined to the view, though, that the new sides are about increasing the bill, an income opportunity, in the same way that the 99 cents is the extra bit we don't count. Then again, I'd have counted the $50-plus cost of duck and two vegetables if I'd ordered two sides.

Contemporary Australian rort, I say. Or am I being parsimonious?