That’s the standard here in Seattle, too. I don’t remember ever being asked how hot I want the food - it’s clearly indicated on the menu.
Here in Central Florida it’s hard for me to get hot wings as hot as I want them. Chain restaurants are slightly not hot enough for me, even on the “hot” setting, but when I go to a local restaurant I never go for the “nuclear” on the first go-around, and I rarely come back to one.
OTOH, there is a local place that does have truth in advertising: their chicken wings come in 3 levels: Mild, Medium, and “Hot”. They don’t lie: the highest level of wings aren’t hot, they’re “hot” 
I’ve seen the rating in spiciness using number of stars or peppers on menus in the US for years.
Of course, it’s not universal. At small places and take-outs I find that I can ask for hot mustard and/or hot oil if I want to punch up the spiciness. We usually have to at those places – they play to the most numerous common denominator, which doesn’t like very hot food.
But a real sit-down restaurant is a different thing. Some will gladly up the ante if you ask. Others think there’s a proper level, and that’s that.
And there’s always the wild card. I’ve eaten at a couple of take-out style places that had set the “normal” spiciness level at a blisteringly high pitch. But those are rare.
I’ve seen this quite often at Thai restaurants in the Atlanta area.
Yes, but those are dishes that simmer for a long time, and presumably in only one batch. Making yours less hot isn’t practical - it’s already been simmering with chilis for three hours now. Indian food is full of simmered-all-day recipes.
Stir fries are something else. The sliced, chopped, whole peppers or hot pepper oil can easily be adjusted, as each serving is made individually. A single bird’s eye chili makes a huge difference in a dish, and the good chefs know how to work the heat at request. After all, heat is only one of the five flavors (in Asian cooking), the chef still has domain over the over four in your dish. The really great chefs know how to adjust the sweet, salty, acrid and bitter in your dish to best compliment the level of heat you request and still deliver a recognizable dish, but they’re probably not slinging Pad Thai in Ottowa.
My mother has a lifelong problem of getting food that is not spicy enough.
“Iz vewwy spicee.”
“Good. I like spicy.”
followed by
“Izz too spicee?”
“No, it’s not hot enough.”
then,
“Izz too spicee?”
“No, it’s still not hot enough.”
One of these days, I’m going to start a thread asking for transliterated Mandarin and Cantonese for “I do not fear spice. Make my food hot and spicy! Hot! Spicy!”
Re Ginger Beer
What’s the general opinion of Goya’s offering?
That has been more in line with my experience in the past.
Even when the dish has indicated its heat level with 0-5 peppers on the menu, the choice has been offered, as I recall. Until I noticed the inflexibility (which I appreciated) at this latest restaurant.
And DocCathode, I’ve never tried Goya. It’s on my list of ginger beers to try if I see it, but I haven’t had the chance yet.
I’ve often been warned, sometimes even warned off, “Lady, you sure you want that? It’s really spicy.” Can’t remember ever being asked how spicy I wanted it, though.
Anyway, thanks Qadgop, maybe there’s some way I can pretend that the spinach salad I brought for lunch today is full of stars.
Old Tyme is the wimpiest of the lot. Try Grace for starters.
Actually, the one place I went to that does that is an Indian restaurant. If you don’t specify how spicy you want it, you get the average.
I find as I get older I can handle slightly more spice, but that’s probably because I’ve been eating more of it. Of course compared to some, I’m still quite a wuss.
On one occasion, at an extremely authentic Korean restaurant, my brother ordered some really spicy noodle dish. He was asked several times if he knew how hot it was and he said yes. When they brought the food, he was puzzled because it wasn’t all that hot. Turned out they’d cut the spiciness, believing he didn’t know what he was getting into or something. Oops.
After that, they believed him!
What did they make it with before Columbus, I wonder? Chili peppers being a New World vegetable, unknown in Thailand or anywhere else in the Eastern Hemisphere before that time.
See this old thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=309207
The current thread reminds me of an old SNL skit with Christian Slater: He and Victoria Jackson go to a restaurant and order Buffalo wings. She orders them “mild” and he orders them “super fire hot.” The waiter asks, “Are you sure? It’s very hot” Slater says he’s sure, the waiter gets the manager and repeats the whole thing . . . Slater insists, so they bring out the liability-release papers . . .
Hmmm… Not according to http://www.curryhouse.co.uk/ (whose recipes I love, and whose cookbook I recommend). According to them, most Indian restaurant curries are cooked in less than 15 minutes, by stir-frying a bland basic sauce with appropriate herbs and spices and pre-cooked meat.
My favorite Indian restaurant (usually considered one of the best in Canada) always asks their patrons how spicy they’d like their dish. I’m guessing part of that is because they make all of their pastes and spice blends from scratch. The other part is likely due to the fact they’re located in the middle of the prairies, where having Indian food isn’t exactly a regular occurrence.
I’ve never been asked at Thai or Vietnamese place, though. The most I get is a concerned reassurance that my red curry will be very hot. My attitude is the chef knows what he or she is doing, so why argue.
I find that those restaurants that don’t ask, often will default to less spicy than correct. There are lots of foods where there is a correct level of spicyness, and unfortunately too many restaurants prefer to sell them at reduced spice levels to accomodate fools.
I say accomodate fools, because if you don’t like spicy food you would be a fool to order Vindaloo, yet many local restaurants offer a Vindaloo which is of medium heat if not less, sertainly less hot then an English Rogan Gosht. Yet the Vindaloo remains the supposedly hottest item on the menu.
The restaurant is just catering for people who want to claim the matcho of eating the hot stuff, without actually eating a spicy dish. This is often confirmed by the fact that more obscure vegitarian dished (the type likely to be ordered by actual Indians) are often far hotter than the vindaloo and rarely even marked up as being spicy.
The same sort of issue is common in Thai and Chinese restaurants. I wish people would avoid food marked as spicy if they don’t like spicyness. and at least not complain if they order something spicy and it comes to them more spicy than their pallette is ready for. The general pussyfication of food in the USA is sad, especially considering how much interest there is in this country for spicy sauces and the glorious fruit of the Chilli.
Jeez! I’m sure he brought the house down! I know I’d be yelling if that happened to me!
In my experience, most of the Asian restaurants I’ve been to will have each dish labelled as to its spiciness, and the server will not ask how spicy you want it. However, if you take the initiative and say you’d like it a particular way, they’ll accomodate you. The exception is the local Korean place, where there’s a relatively short menu, and almost all dishes are variable spiciness (and the server does ask), but the dominant spice seems to be some sort of powder which is sprinkled over the food after cooking, so it’d be easy to vary.
And I, too, am sorely disappointed with the spice level at most places in America. I’ve only ever been to one place (a little family-owned wing dive run by recent immigrants) which actually passed my threshhold on the top of their spice scale (which meant I could get it just like I liked it, by ordering one of the lesser levels). And I’ve heard that you can get truly hot food at many restaurants, if you look like the correct ethnicity and order in the language, but that doesn’t help much for a white guy like me. At any sort of chain, though, forget about it.
Marge: Ooh, Lisa! Is that too spicy for you?
Lisa: I can see through time!
Was that the Taj Mahal? That’s the restaurant my aunt and uncle took us to. They love spicy stuff, but then they spent a year in Thailand and can handle more heat than I.
I’m stealing this whether you like it or not. 
Signed, a four-star orderer.