Addendum.

A behavioral pattern that I've now noticed among three different sets of (young) (South Asian from South Asia) customers is:

Wanting special dish creations, even if it's very late at night, and even if they have no idea what the menu is or what they're talking about.

Like, with two sets of (young) (South Asian from South Asia) customers who at different times came in pretty late and we tried to get them to order right away, they both stalled in ordering, and then when it was time to order, they wanted something special made up in a way that wasn't listed on the menu, and that was just plausible enough where it might be doable, but it was also just complicated enough where you had to go back to the kitchen to even see if it was possible (something that is "meh" to deal with when it's typical dining hours, very occasionally there's requests like that, but something that just kind of blindsides you as a request that a customer might make when you've already let them know that it's getting late, it's just such loopy behavior).

And, slicing that set of customers a different way, too, two others also didn't know the menu at all, they were first time customers, and yet within this very voluminous restaurant menu, they somehow ended up wanting something special made up in very involved ways that just didn't make sense.

Like, for one, from a full 6-7 options for fried rice, they honed in on 1 of the 2 fried rices that *only* come with multiple meats, and they wanted to know if the sauce was vegetarian, so they could have a vegetarian version of this dish that is pretty much only really noteworthy for being the one fried rice that comes with multiple meats.

And, for another, once during normal dining hours in this big group of (South Asian from South Asia) people, this one guy said he wanted this one vegetarian dish with its listed ingredients, but with the listed sauce of another dish -- and then, when I went back to ask about that, it turns out that both dishes had the same sauce!

One of the things that I've learned in my life is that if you ever meet people from a group like a religious group and their behavior seems illogical, it probably isn't, but rather it has some deeper logic that makes sense within their originating ideological system, and it's only weird to you because you're just not getting that context.

And, as far as I can tell, the only reason someone would make a request like switching one sauce with another when they don't know the menu at all and the sauces are in fact identical is that it's not in fact about the sauce; it's about their ability to make that demand, and to have others hop when they say "jump!".

Part of me thinks that's also behind why these hyper-special orders are prone to come in late at night, or super last-minute orders are made right when the kitchen is closing, or why they order something after they've been told it's too late -- yes, there's probably something there with the underlying desire, but my intuition is that they *like* being the people who make other people stand around and serve them, by keeping a place open just for them, or by keeping the kitchen open just for them, or by bending or breaking the rules and having something done just for them like having that order made for them after that one type of food station was supposed to be closed.

Some of this might be youth out late and flexing muscles or newness to culture where they haven't been checked and taught yet, but fundamentally it's just very class-based behavior, and then on top of that, the very boorish and un-self-aware people who are probably most prone to engage in this type of behavior, are also probably the ones most prone to not pick up on the tipping practices of another culture (or at least they choose not to know, in the behavioral interpretation of several of my [Thai] coworkers).

I really do think it gets into deep stuff like my (Thai) coworkers have been saying for a while now, that all of this stuff from this portion of (South Asian from South Asia) customers is like this refraction of the historic (Indian) caste system.