I have been to a restaurant with a large group of people from work where the orders were stuffed up and I ate the “left over” meal rather than stuff around waiting for them to cook what I ordered. As it turned out I got it free, but no not high maintenance.
In my experience, the most hated foods in America are (in order of hatred):
Onions
Mushrooms
Tomato
Green peppers
My incredibly non-scientific research methodology involved waiting tables for 5 years at a Chi-Chi’s in North Carolina. I am not wild about green peppers, personally (one of the few foods I dislike!)
I selected “virtually every time”, since “hold the mayo”, “hold the ranch”, and “no tomatoes, please” are almost universally part of my order.
Hmm. I’m apparently high maintenance, although I can’t say I thought of myself that way. I’m a vegetarian, so I often make requests to leave meat out of something. If I’m at a new restaurant and the vegetarian options are not obvious, I will usually ask the server what they recommend, and then take whatever they suggest. I will also ask for confirmation that a dish is actually vegetarian.
I’ve never sent a dish back, though. If I got something I don’t want/like, I just don’t eat it. I can always eat a granola bar later.
P.S. I find onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and green peppers to be delightful. I’ll take the ones y’all don’t want.
The contents of my favorite omelette!
IMO, leaving ingredients off of dishes isn’t high-maintenance. Wholesale substitution is.
I’m definitely not high maintenance, but only because I am not a picky eater. I think it is ok, though, to ask for substitutes, etc… particularly the more expensive the restaurant is.
I had a friend in law school, however, who was a nightmare. After our first year, I would not go to a restaurant with her. I honestly don’t think she has ever been out to eat without sending the food back and demanding to speak to a manager. My friends and I would usually track down the waitress afterwards and slip him/her a $20. It was awful.
I think it was because she felt ineffectual in her life and felt like this was the one situation where she could be an absolute shit to someone. I imagine she has eaten A LOT of waitress’/servers’/cooks’ spit, or worse.
My friend now works for the IRS. Seriously! 
About my worst is to ask them to hold the lemon in the ice tea, I do this every time, but I don’t think that counts since the menu (and waitstaff) only say iced tea, they never say iced tea with lemon.
There is one place where I try to remember to have them hold the onions. For some reason this restaurant thinks it is ok that the onion on a salad outnumbers the lettuce.
ETA: noticed the comments about “onion hate”. I love cooked onions - raw onions are far too potent for me to enjoy.
I’ve probably returned things less than a dozen times, and usually because the thing is broken, and then I exchange it, not return it. The last thing I can recall returning was a specialized lightbulb for a recessed fixture because I bought the wrong size. I investigate things before I buy them. I don’t suddenly decide that I no longer want to mow my lawn and ask for a full refund on a heavily used lawnmower like the guy in front of me was doing.
I don’t buy a yellow shirt if I don’t like the color yellow, yet I see people returning piles of clothes all the time. They have dressing rooms. You don’t get to take the clothes home before deciding if you like them.
Some people just feel entitled to flaunt the rules. The same goes for a restaurant. They have a menu for a reason. You get to pick what you want to eat from a variety of choices, you are not hiring a personal chef for your meal. There are some obvious exceptions to this, as have been mentioned, but some people just don’t understand what is reasonable.
Yeah, that would piss me off too, and was totally inappropriate of the in-laws. I ended up canceling celebrating my birthday with my own in-laws this year because what I was interested in trying was not an acceptable option and we couldn’t reach a bargaining point. :rolleyes:
I find that I’m often eating in restaurants of other people’s choosing, so I try my best to find something on the menu that will work for me as-is; if not, I try to substitute extra vegetables or something simple rather than gripe about the food selection. I do, however, find myself eating stuff I wasn’t really interested in eating more often than not.
I don’t eat pork, so because almost everything on every menu these days seems to contain bacon, I have to say, “no bacon, please.” I suppose that’s high maintenance?
This is kind of lacking in description, when you say “blackened steak” it really has very little to do with the temperature. I could serve you a blackened steak that is very rare, although you would dismiss it as well done from outward appearance. Case in point, Pittsburgh Rare, or a skillet blackened steak. What exactly was the temperature of the inner meat… was there any red and juice?
Very low-maintenance, as is my BF (the only person I eat out with) to a fault. I am a server myself, and people who are demanding are my pet peeve.
Asking for simple omissions (BEFORE the food is made) or sending back improperly cooked items (within a reasonable margin of error) don’t qualify as ‘high maintenance’ in my book.
If I see something on the menu that looks absolutely delicious save for one unfortunate ingredient I might consider asking for it to be served without. This happens less than once a year, I’d say.
I don’t ask for any special treatment, or substitutions, though I may ask them to leave something off… like mushrooms or green peppers. I just don’t like them. Otherwise, I’m fairly easy, and just want drink refills to appear when required.
That’s what I’d do. If I can’t do a substitution, I’ll have a backup plan.
My rule is that if I don’t like three or more ingredients in a particular dish, I’ll find something else. Actually, two is pushing it. Substituting all those ingredients is a pain in the ass sometimes.
I have sent two dishes back before, that I know of, and both times it was because it was too spicy for my tastes. I’d be fine at first, but as I ate more, it would become clear that my tongue was slowly burning to death, and I just couldn’t eat any more. The first time, I got a substitution (something creamy, a good call on the waiter’s part), but the second time, I didn’t have any time to wait for another meal, so a friend of mine offered to share his entree with me. I made it clear both times that it was my personal taste, and not the cook, that was to blame. I was charged for neither dish.
Even though all the waiter in this thread have said that asking for substitutions is no big deal?
Eh, it’s more of a pain in the ass for me, because sometimes I forget what all I was substituting and then end up with a dish that has an ingredient I don’t like. If I have to make a mental laundry list to order something, forget it.
Another vegetarian here. I can usually find something on the menu and it isn’t a big deal, but for example last week I was in New Orleans and went out to dinner with a group of people and there were literally NO entrees OR Appetizers without some form of meat in them. I don’t consider a green salad to be a meal, so I asked if there was anything they could do. They ended up bringing me some steamed veggies and rice, but I still got very little protein and while it tasted good, it didn’t really hold me very well.
I don’t think I’m high maintenance at restaurants in general. I will sometimes make a substitution to suit my vegetarian diet, but it generally isn’t something really difficult on the cook or anything. I don’t generally send anything back unless it’s really grievous, like it’s burned black (I recall a particular charcoal-like grilled cheese sandwich…) or it’s the completely wrong thing, or something like that. The number of times that has happened is very small.
Consider myself very low maintenance. Only ever sent back 1 pasta carbonara because they asked me if I might want extra soy sauce (hated that plate of food with my eyes and ears before it ever hit my tongue) and 1 Corona because it was skunked beyond belief.
Really, the Missus and I have more of a problem with restaurants that try to accomodate your tastes too much. We like “what comes with it.”
Soy sauce???