When <i> Tapas </i> Are Not Really <i> Tapas</i> . . .

Bouzy Rouge in Newport Beach sent me a copy of its new menu not long ago, pointing out proudly that it lists, among other things, “Spanish tapas variations”--and adding helpfully that “tapas means little bites.”

Tapas doesn’t mean “little bites,” and the dishes Bouzy Rouge offers under its new tapas heading are “variations” on true tapas about the same way that calzone is a variation on knishes and pirogi. I don’t mean to single out Bouzy Rouge for criticism here--in fact, I find it a very agreeable place, and I’m sure the “tapas” it offers are as fresh and delicious as its other good food--but the Bouzy Rouge approach to tapas does bring up a point I’ve been meaning to make for some time: that, outside of a few local Spanish restaurants (Barcelona in Santa Monica and La Masia in West Hollywood, for instance), no area eating place, to the best of my knowledge, serves tapas that are authentic--or that are presented in anything approaching the same spirit as tapas are in Spain.

Tapas means covers or lids. The first tapas, the story goes, were simply slices of bread used to cover wine or sherry glasses between sips, to keep out the flies and dust, in the tabernas of Andalusia, the sherry country of southern Spain. These evolved into little canapes topped with ham, cheese, anchovies or some such, and eventually into breadless saucer-sized platefuls of almost any kind of simple food.

Tapas are snacks, then. Bar food. Something to nibble on. They’re eaten casually, spontaneously (“Say, that looks good . . . .”), usually to fend off hunger between real meals. (Remember, lunch in Spain usually starts at 2 p.m. and dinner after 10.) Spaniards do make whole meals of tapas sometimes, especially in hot weather in the south or in Madrid when eating lightly while standing at a bar is a good deal more comfortable than eating heavily while sitting at a table. But, then, Americans make whole meals out of beer nuts and Hot Stix sometimes, too--and that doesn’t mean that there’s any point in putting them on restaurant menus.

Being bar food, tapas should, by definition, be both cheap and uncomplicated. Tapas in the United States tend to be fancy and to be priced like conventional appetizers. (They’re $3.50 to $6.95 at Bouzy Rouge, for instance.) And being of Spanish origin, tapas-- if you’re going to call them tapas in the first place--ought to be at least vaguely Spanish. In the case of Bouzy Rouge, though, the “tapas” include Budnerfleisch, pate Provencal, cold chicken tortellini, and souvlaki. The closest thing to a Spanish dish on the menu is “Portuguese escabeche of mahi mahi.” Other local tapas menus tend to be similarly eclectic.

What about mountain ham, manchego cheese, fried calamari, olives, potato omelettes, stewed fava beans, salt cod croquettes, paella? What about tapas?

ANNALS OF THE U.S.D.A.: Thanks to the February-March issue of “Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer,” the periodical catalogue of goods for sale at the admirable Trader Joe’s markets, I can add another example of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s curious food sense to the record. The department, you may recall, vetoed one of Wolfgang Puck’s proposed frozen pizzas awhile back, on the grounds that in order to qualify as pizza by department standards pizza must contain tomato sauce (which Puck’s original Pesto Pizza didn’t). Trader Joe’s, in another context, supplies the information that for ground meat packed in a casing to be called “sausage” under department rules, it must either be smoked or contain nitrates. Presumably, unsmoked nitrate-free sausage, its undeniable health benefits notwithstanding, would have to be labeled as something else entirely. If you put tomato sauce on it, I wonder if they’d let you call it pizza?

DAILY SPECIALS: Steven Sponder, proprietor of the popular Palace Cafe in Santa Barbara (which specializes in Cajun/Creole food), notes that he is looking for a location in Los Angeles at which to launch a “Florida-inspired” Caribbean restaurant, featuring a variety of South Florida seafood, especially flown in. . . . On another Caribbean front, St. Barth’s Market & Grill in Pacific Palisades has reintroduced its Caribbean-style Sunday brunch today, beginning at 9 a.m.. . . . The former Merchant of Venice in, of all places, Venice, has been renamed Hal’s--after its new proprietor, Hal Frederick. . . . The Blue Moon Saloon in Redondo Beach, recently destroyed by high seas, is asking the public for donations to their rebuilding fund--in return for credit for the same amount when the establishment reopens. Information: (213) 376-0978. . . . Hy’s Steak House in Century City has a new owner--Rod Gardiner, a long-time business partner of Hy Aisenstatt, founder of the Hy’s chain. Anh Le, who trained at the Cordon Bleu in Paris and was the pastry chef at Hy’s, has been named executive chef, and Wes Zane, former general manager of Hy’s in Honolulu, assumes that post here.