Who did? There are exceptions to everything, especially when they’re specifically qualified with words like “almost”. Stop looking for reasons to be offended.
Edit: And why am I even bothering to defend myself? What I said did not apply to you at all, qualified or not. Anyone reading can see that without my response.
How do the examples I gave not qualify for:
“…and people who do this are universally hated by everyone involved in catering to them”?
??
I’m not remotely offended. If making the requests I make means I’m a dick, I’m perfectly happy being a dick. That’s what you don’t seem to get.
I’ve recently started doing this because my daughter has a gluten intolerance. Do you have any frakkin’ idea how many menu items - especially children’s menu items - have wheat in them in some form or another?
I generally (briefly) explain why I’m making everyone’s day a little harder, and I’ve gotten nothing but smiles and assistance. I try to make small variations instead of requesting entirely new dishes. Sometimes I can work it out by requesting corn tortillas instead of flour, or ordering an appetizer as her entree. In a couple of cases, the chef or cook has come out to see the preschooler enjoying her chicken satay instead of chicken fingers or her cheeseburgers without the bun. The best ones are able to make suggestions, as well, like the cook who suggested deep fried chicken balls when she was upset she couldn’t have fried chicken - he stuck minced chicken, grated veggies and seasonings together with rice and coated them in instant mashed potatoes instead of breading before frying them!
Oooh deep fried chicken balls sound good
I’ve only done it when it’s been offered to me. This has happened in three or four places where I was a well liked regular.
A friend orders Grilled Cheese sandwiches at the local BK. He is well known and well liked. On a out of town trip,he ordered and the counter worker had to get the Manager. She looked at my friend and said, “What are you doing here?” turns out she had moved from “Back Home” and had served him many times.
On family trips my sister found that if you ask nicely all most all seafood places will make pasta with red sause.
I’m with lissener, I’ve done this in the past but only at non-chain establishments where I have developed a relationship as a welcomed repeat customer.
Our quotes are even almost the same, “If the Chef feels up to it, surprise me” If I end up with a platter of liver & onions, damn straight it will be the best liver & onions I’ve ever had. It’s the chance you take…
All I can suggest is that you not go back in time and live my life and have my experiences, because they’re all I was stating.
At a pizza place we used frequent very…well, frequently…a friend of ours used to joke around that they ought to have chocolate pizza - hey, chocolate plus pizza - how could you go wrong?
The owner used to say - you bring the chocolate, I’ll make the pizza.
Eventually he did - a BIG bag of chocolate buttons. So, sure enough, he got Chocolate Pizza - basic pizza dough, filled with chocolate (and bonus strawberries) with sugar on top, served with icecream.
It was Very Very Yummy. And there were plenty of chocolate buttons left over.
So for the next …ummm… a long time, I foget how long - every time we went for pizza (generally every Friday) we’d get a big Chocolate Pizza to share between the lot of us. I’m sure at some point over the next couple of years the restaurant ran out of chocolate buttons from the original bag, but I think they just got more.
Chocolate pizza is Good Stuff.
I often order inari at sushi places even though it’s rarely on the menu. It’s just something I like that I know most places make. At other places I’ll convince them to make one of their meat dishes with portabello mushrooms for me. They’re always quite willing and it’s yummy to have food I can eat at places. And once they took my favorite of the menu at my college’s quiznos I kept ordering it, occassionally walking a new person through the exact steps to make it. Or my preferred drink that isn’t on our starbucks menu either.
Hmmm, writing this all out I seem quite difficult. I swear I’m not that bad, I always ask and they’ve never been unwilling. Actually some of the tricks were them telling me things I could do which they tried and weren’t on the menu.
Short answer: yes, all the time.
Chef chiming in…
If someone has an allergy, I will go out of my way to make sure that their meal is safe for them to eat. If nothing on the menu is acceptable, even with substitutions, we will prepare what ever we can to make that person happy.
If a frequent guest asks for something we used to offer on the menu, we can usually put something similar together without much trouble. We might not have every ingredient, but we will substitute whatever we can. Also, most recipes are difficult to scale down to a single serving, so it may not taste exactly like it did before.
But it pisses me off when someone asks for “something special.” They show up to my restaurant, don’t like the menu, and ask for something that I don’t even have. I have a dozen tickets hanging, and I don’t have time to concoct some random dish for you. If you call ahead of time, I can make whatever you want, but my options are limited with only a moment’s notice.
However, if you insist on putting me on the spot, please give me some idea of what you want. A month ago, a man came in and didn’t like the vegan entree we offer, and asked for something else. I offered to make a baked ziti dish, but he scoffed at that and said “No pasta.” He just pouted and asked for some steamed vegetables. A couple weeks ago, a lady had the same problem with the menu, but asked for some kind of stir-fry. I mixed the vegetables from several entrees and salads, and added a little soy sauce, honey and ketchup to the miso vinn from an appetizer to make a sauce, and cooked some rice noodles we had in the back, and she was thrilled with her dinner. Two similar situations with very different results.
I’ll often ASK for substitutions or to mix n match mains (can I get the duck with the sauce from the chicken dish please) or similiar or for a meat to be gilled instead of fried or something like that, and it has never been a problem. Most of the restaurants we attend we are well known by the staff and they are quite happy to oblige.
I’ve ordered vegetarian items that weren’t on the menu in sushi restaurants in Japan ('cause, I hate to admit it, but I’m not a big fan of sushi).
There was a Chinese restaurant in Toronto that had the best hot and sour soup in the city (which is saying something), so it was a frequent hang-out. Someone in our crowd once ordered deep-fried banana chicken, which wasn’t on the menu. From then on, I ordered it every time I was in there. It was heavenly, but it never showed up on their menu that I ever noticed.
My wife used to work Pastries in NY landmark restaurant the Russian Tea Room. Plenty of people, both regulars and celebrities (of varying orders of magnitude) would order stuff off-menu. One that comes to mind is when she had to run outside to a nearby bodega to pick up some strawberries because Gene Simmons *had *to have strawberries and cream.
Apparently this works pretty well at Taco Bell. A lot of their “new” menu items are just combinations of various ingredients in stock, so when stuff goes off the menu, you can often recreate it. The chance of this working depends on how old the item is, and how much patience the high school kid has with you.
There was a small italian restaurant in the ground floor of the World Trade Center in NYC that I went to one evening with a group of people I was working with. The gentleman that owned the restaurant asked if we were interested in some things that they wanted to get opinions on tat were not on the menu. We agreed & we had a complete feast that was not on the menu. One of my best restaurant memories.
I was about to mention Taco Bell. I’ll sometimes ask if they can whip up an Enchirito and they usually can.
The old Perkins chain had a menu item I’d really enjoyed: Bread bowl chili. Just what it said it was - a portion of their chili served in a bowl shaped piece of bread. After a while, they took it off the menu. But still served salads in their bread bowls. And still had chili on their menu.
So I asked if they could recreate it for me - and offered to pay for a bread bowl salad and a bowl of chili.
The wait staff had no problem recreating what I wanted, nor did there seem to be any frustration from anyone involved.
A bunch of us made a trip from Upstate New York to Toronto to see a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, which is in Chinatown. My wife and I had been there before and had eaten at a neighboring restaurant, so we called to make a group reservation with them.
We thought this was a normal sensible thing for tourists to do, but they were so excited that we had picked them from the states that they threw out the menu and created a ten course meal.
Ironically, I was still too young to have the palate to truly appreciate the meal. Looking back, it was probably one of the best meals ever set in front of me and today I would love to have it recreated.
And it was really cheap, too.
I used to order off the menu all the time at a place near where I lived. This place had a restaurant, a diner, and a carry-out all under the same roof. I used to go to the carry-out and was able to order anything that was being served in any of the three different places and carry it home to eat it.
It helped that I had gotten to know the owners and they would tell me when something I liked was being served. 