Presence

Huh? No sympathies for me just because I am not Orthodox? You wouldn't go to that restaurant in the first place, good for you. I would, and it is deceptive to *me*, since I do eat meat with dairy, but not pork or shellfish.

If you are that particular about what you eat, to the point where you feel it is a religious obligation with possible metaphysical consequences, then, as they say, you pays your money, you takes your chances. As far as I know, those restaurants have no legal requirement to make known to you what is in their special sauce. You may feel it is deceptive, but I think its a matter of expediency. If you're that concerned, go some place you know it wont be a problem.

Look at it from my perspective. There's is conceptually nothing wrong with me going to a regular restaurant and ordering something like a salad; if all goes well, I could end up eating a completely kosher salad. But regular restaurants aren't required to make sure my salad is kosher, so there is a chance, even possibly by accident, that it may end up not kosher. Because of this, I dont generally do this. It sucks, but that's the choice I've made. If you choose to go to that restaurant, you're at their mercy. They make no claims that their food won't contain pork or shellfish, so you shouldn't be surprised if that's what you get.

And please don't conflate this to have anything to do with your religious affiliation. Plenty of non-Orthodox Jews keep strictly kosher in and out of the house.

Ami is obviously welcome to follow whatever may be the dictates of his (or her, I suppose) conscience. I submit, however, that the average non-kosher restauranteur makes a reasonable assumption in presuming that his patrons utilize the more common definitions of kashrut in their dining decisions.

It should also be noted that the typical recitation of the available dishes is intended to be descriptive, rather than an exhaustive cataloguing of every single ingredient.

There may well be people whose particular religious convictions preclude them from ingesting all sorts of foods. Once it can be reasonably assumed that the individual's religious mandates permit dining at the restaurant, the onus of determining whether the daily specials incorporate these foodstuffs falls upon the consumer.

There is no sympathy for anyone who cares about food to not know what prosciutto is.

The point isn't whether Jews or Muslims have a right to know whether what they order is Kosher/Halal (albeit VERY liberally interpreted)...

The point is whether we, as consumers, have the right to be accurately informed... For example, I know this person (very WASP looking) who has an allergy to pork...

He would have gotten very sick had he ordered veal in that one place where they actually substituted pork for veal and he might have gotten slightly unwell in the other places where they used prosciutto for the sauce...