fork fees?

I had some friends down visiting recently, which provided me the opportunity to do something a little out-of-the-ordinary: eat at nice restaurants. Generally I'm on a pretty tight budget, which means either cooking at home or dining budget-style only. But since this was a special occasion, and since my friends came with their pockets stuffed with U.S. dollars, I got to dine in style for a few days.

But one thing that struck me about the fancy restaurants we visited here in the city was an unusual charge that a couple of places tacked on to our bill: a fee for cubiertas, or silverware.

Now, one of the places we ate at was so good that they could have charged me for salt and pepper use and I wouldn't have complained. But it still struck me funny that a restaurant would bill its customers for using their silverware (it was about US$1.50 per person in both cases). Or is that a fairly routine practice in fancy-schamntzy dining?

In any case, it got me to thinking that maybe the next time I go out for fine eating, I could save a few pesos by bringing my own knife and fork along. Think they'd take offense?