Happened to me too, at the Moroccan place in Kreis 5. Their multi-plate selection are obviously meant for sharing, but the local insisted on ordering separately. We ended up ordering two of the exact same sharing plates. Even the waitress alerted the person to the fact and that we could have more variety if ordering together, but they insisted.

I was miffed only due to the resulting lack of variety.

In North America, sharing is common, esp at Chinese, Indian, Ethiopian restuarants, where obvioulsy you want to try different dishes, as would be done in those cultures anyways.