Mrs. Mercotan and I just got back from Ottawa where we visited the elfbabe and her SO. While there we did many happy things, including indulging ourselves in lots of varied cuisines.
We hit a Thai food restaurant (not an uncommon occurance for us), where I noted something rather new to me on the menu: The dishes were labelled by the usual seafood/noodle/curry/rice/etc designations, but also by the designation as to the level of spiciness that it would be served at. From zero peppers (no added heat) to 5 peppers (hang on tight!)
No negotiating, no nothing. These were the heat levels that the restaurant chef felt the dish merited. The “right” level of spiciness to properly enhance the ingredients.
I’d never seen this before, and wondered if other dopers had. Frankly, it was a nice change from the usual “How hot do you want it?” sort of queries.
(BTW, I got the stir-fried thai beef and vegetable dish which was offered up as the hottest thing on the menu. Ye gods it was good!!! Or as I said to elfbabe “The food! It’s full of stars!” )
I’ve seen that on menus around SoCal before. I automatically discount 2 peppers from the stated heat, because most customers are pussies. But it helps to judge what the kitchen is at least attempting to do.
Well, the maximum heat challenged me, but I relished it. I’m no masochist, I’m not in it just for the macho burning, but this was a hot pepper dish that lived up to my expectations, and the heat accentuated and enhanced the flavor, rather than overpowering it.
BTW, I got to bring a case of Olde Tyme Jamaican Ginger Beer back with me on the plane!
That’s the way I prefer it. Some Thai, Vietnamese, Sichuan, Hunanese and Korean food is supposed to be hot. I don’t want it rendered as bland goop. And if I don’t want hot food, I’ll order something else.
That’s virtually universal here in Australia. When in the US and asked this question (as one inevitably is) I always answer “as the chef/cook thinks appropriate”.
I don’t know why you think that it’s typical to be asked how hot you want the food. In the restaurants I usually go to, there’s no choice for the customer in how hot the food is. Also, the business of marking the heat (i.e., spiceness) of the item by the number of peppers put next to the item in the menu seems to be reasonably common, especially in Thai restaurants.
Unless I’m mistaken, in most restaurants you DO have a choice, even if it’s not listed or explicitly offered. we have peppers on the menu to indicate spicy dishes and people ask us all the time to make it extra spicy or not too spicy or whatever. And we do it.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to a Thai restaurant that didn’t ask, when I ordered a dish marked as “hot”, if I wanted it “mild, medium, hot, or Thai hot”…
Quite right you are never asked how hot you want something here. Most places just mention how hot a dish is on the menu - mild, medium, hot, very hot. The only time I can recall discussing the heat of a dish was many years ago when Indian restaurants were very rare and most of their customers where Indians. I ordered a Vindaloo and the waiter informed me that it was very hot. I said that was fine and he actually asked me how often I had eaten curry before. I had to assure him that I knew what I was ordering before he would let me have it.
I’ve only ever been to one place that asked you how hot you wanted your food, everywhere else has the rating of heat, or other places just denote the spicier stuff by red bold writing instead of black.
[sub]*For the record, we got the lowest/no heat. I like some, as does some of my family but others can’t even handle very mild stuff and anything I know will be too hot for me, I just don’t order.[/sub]
There’sa little Thai place run by a family of Laotians that I go to. Very simple, very delicious. They indicate the heat with the little pepper scale. I always ask for it extrahot regardless of the standard. They never disappoint. If you want real heat you have to go off the menu and ask for it.
That’s pretty standard in Canada, at least in my experience as a spicy food lover. I don’t think I’ve ever been given a choice, really–it’s always been up to the chef as to how hot the dish is.
I suppose one could ask for Dish X to be hotter or milder, but with so many dishes on the menu, there’s probably one with the wanted ingredients and at the heat level desired.
Keep in mind, the cooks do not always work seven days a week. I’ve asked for “hotter than normal” thai fried rice twice at the same place. One time it was as hot as I wanted it, the other time it was two steps above tepid.
I find that you can make a decent case to the wait staff. You can say “do your worst” or you can say “I’m not your average American milquetoast, I can take crushed red peppers”.
Places that are not willing to vary heat, are doomed to failure, or at least, I don’t like them.
Common in the UK, too. Most places are willing to modify the food if requested, but they don’t ask every bloody customer whether they know better than the chefs.
Yup, I’ve never seen a restaurant that would modify spice to fit your preference- if you don’t want spicy food, you tell the waiter and they suggest one of the milder dishes.
I mean, it’s not like you can go to an Indian restaurant and ask for a vindaloo “but easy on the spice”, or a ask for a green curry that isn’t spicy in a Thai restauarant- the reason it’s green is because it uses green chillies!
