I generally don't eat in hotel restaurants that much but if I do I haven't ever felt the need to order off menu even at the Pen in Shanghai where our set lunch had some very odd items not to our taste (even through we eat a lot of Chinese food in places like HK) - we had excellent food in several other l good Chinese restaurants on that trip.

I only ever order say western food in Asia if I've been travelling for a few weeks and I just fancy something other than the local cuisine. I wouldn't expect even a hotel in HK to provide say a good Pizza if they don't have a wood burning oven. Obviously if you know where the chef originates from then you could ask for one of their home country's dishes but unless you're somewhere that there's super fresh fish I think I'd pass on the sushi! Although I go to lots of Thai restaurants in London when at home I wouldn't think of ordering Thai at a hotel in Venice as I've seen mention of on here!

Incidentally at the IC in Marseille last week a young trendy looking Chinese(?) trio arrived at the next table to try order off menu - fried rice! I didn't hear the waiter's response as he was facing away from me but I imagine that that although a very simple dish would be extremely difficult to make in a western style kitchen that probably wouldn't have all the ingredients or a wok to cook them in. They didn't have fried rice!