Enumeration marker appears centered to the left of the table

Question

\item

  \begin{tabular}{ |l| l| l| }
    ...
  \end{tabular}
  \quad
  \begin{tabular}{ |l| l| l| }
    ...
  \end{tabular}

The following causes the enumeration marker (ie, "(b)"), to appear in the middle and to the left of the first table. How can I have the marker appear at the top (and to the left) of the table instead? (If I add some random text before the tables this works, but I don't want any text there.)

Answer 1

The tabular environment takes an optional argument that defines where the "anchor" of the table should be. [t] will align the first (top) line of the tabular with the current line of text (as I understand it). Center alignment is the default, [b] is for bottom alignment.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{enumerate}
\item
\begin{tabular}[t]{l}
This \\
is \\
a\\
table
\end{tabular}
\end{enumerate}
\end{document}