Have it your way; just don't be a pain when you do.

Byline: Judy Hevrdejs

When Chicago executives Dick and Elizabeth Sanderson eat out _ which they do almost every night _ he says they often ask for "dark green leaf lettuces because they're much better for you" in their salad. They also ask to have dishes prepared without garlic.

And if there's a soapy odor coming from their wine glasses, they ask for replacements.

"We eat out so much, I just like to have things exactly the way I like them," said Dick Sanderson, who heads an advertising agency in Chicago.

In America, it seems, choice in restaurants has become an inalienable right. Long gone is the attitude captured in 1970's "Five Easy Pieces," when Jack Nicholson bulldozed his way past a rigid waitress to get a slice of toast.

"One of the reasons we have really gone totally to the other side, bending over backwards to do whatever the customer says, is because competition today is more fierce than ever," said Isidore Kharasch, president of Hospitality Works, a restaurant consulting firm based in Deerfield, Ill. "In today's market, what differentiates one restaurant from everybody else is a willingness to go a …