This is also a problem in Japan, though it’s gotten a bit better in the last couple years. You could order the “extremely hot” version of something and it would be quite literally barely have even a noticeable level of spice. More recently though I’ve seen actual bags of habaneros for sale at farm stands, something that would’ve been completely unthinkable even just 5 years ago, when tabasco was pretty much the hottest thing you’d (regularly) see in the entire country (that or ichimi/shichimi, which are powdered spices comparable to a tabasco heat).
However, we still had (and still mostly have) the same problem of the very occasional Indian restaurant or ramen shop actually meaning it when they said extremely hot. But since it only happened like 2% of the time you just had to assume menus were lying until the rare instances when the heat blew your face off.
This is also a problem in Japan, though it’s gotten a bit better in the last couple years. You could order the “extremely hot” version of something and it would be quite literally barely have even a noticeable level of spice. More recently though I’ve seen actual bags of habaneros for sale at farm stands, something that would’ve been completely unthinkable even just 5 years ago, when tabasco was pretty much the hottest thing you’d (regularly) see in the entire country (that or ichimi/shichimi, which are powdered spices comparable to a tabasco heat).
However, we still had (and still mostly have) the same problem of the very occasional Indian restaurant or ramen shop actually meaning it when they said extremely hot. But since it only happened like 2% of the time you just had to assume menus were lying until the rare instances when the heat blew your face off.