How much should you be allowed to monkey with a menu?

• anth0nyc
• We’re all not always on our best behavior in restaurants.

All chefs have a vision for what they’re serving you — an idea of what the food is meant to convey through the engagement of your senses. Some hope you’re respectful enough to recognize that a lot of thought went into a given dish; others know that you’re paying the rent, and your high cholesterol can dictate whatever changes you want; and a select group of chefs simply say you can eat it or shove it.

There’s a fascinating thread on Chowhound about a bartender refusing to alter a jalapeno cocktail for a customer. Although I suspect, as is often the case with tales of service issues, that the interaction was not a simple ask and answer. The question raised is one of the true gray areas in a dining room. At what point on the axis is the customer wrong and the restaurant staff right, and vice versa?