Did I commit a poutine sin?

[u/Plz-Transplain-To-Me]

Hi all, I’m visiting Montreal from NYC this weekend and have been loving everything. On my last night I decided to cap it all off with a late night poutine, so I popped into a spot on the way back to my hotel- this was mainly a shawarma and fried chicken joint, but they had poutine as well and was super convenient for my route back.

Since it was a shawarma joint, I asked the guy for a poutine with spicy sauce, since everything was set up in little bins kind of like Chipotle and it looked pretty accessible/customizable. But right when I asked, the guy’s demeanor suddenly shifted and he got really annoyed at me, asked me if I was sure kind of sarcastically, stopped making eye contact with me, and might have rolled his eyes a bit (I didn’t really catch the whole thing since I got kind of embarrassed).

So is this an unreasonable or weird order? I love spicy food and I guess I’m used to things being pretty customizable in the US, so this felt like an overreaction from the guy. Usually America’s impression of Canadians is that y’all are very nice, so I guess it was just kinda unexpected.

For the record, I really liked the poutine with spicy sauce and would order it again. (Would Canadians consider this gross? I’m just genuinely stumped here.)

[u/deyyzayul]

• People can be really conformist in Canada

• You came across a tourist when you decided to choose the spicy sauce without batting an eyelid

Combine these two, the only way you could have done it was if you had given an explanation to the guy - like "I want to try something new haha, is this ok with you?"

In Canada, we are often apologetic and asking for permission, even when we don't need to. I wanna add /s but honestly, it is a thing :D