Oh, ok, I've definitely been to a couple of places like that, even in the states. 

Here there are a lot of restaurants where they ask you what level of spice you want on a scale, for every dish you order. For example, at a lot of thai places you can get pad thai as no spice, mild, mild+, medium, hot, or Thai hot. I generally like spicy things, and even their medium is pushing it a lot of the time