BeerBorg

I'm not sure if this belongs here, but it's close enough.

I've always liked spicy food. When I was in college, I worked with a lot of Mexicans and they'd bring hot peppers from their gardens. I'd eat them like candy. I went to China last year, and everybody expected me to be grossed out by some of the things I was served, but they told me that what surprised them more was that I didn't flinch at the spicy dishes, even when I was in the Sichuan province.

My daughter found a Thai restaurant in Salt Lake City that she likes. They have a hot index that goes from 0-10 (although there's a rumor that there's another one if you sign a waiver). She goes with 0.

I ordered the green curry.

The conversation with the waitress was something like this

What hot?
7
Maybe 2
I like spicy food.
Ok. Is 2 ok?
I think 7 (I know authentic Thai food is really really hot, so I don't want to push my luck).
Maybe 3
5?
Ok. We serve you 3 this time. We have a book. If you eat 3 and it's not enough, you sign your name, Next time we serve you 4. If you eat 4 and it's not enough, you sign again. But we don't serve more than 3 first time.

So I resign myself to a less than spicy meal.

And HOLY CRAP! They must have told the cook to punish me. This is like eating fire, except that eating fire would probably not involve sweating so much.

This is probably the hottest food I've ever eaten. And I've eaten Lao, Viet, Nepali, Indian, Mexican, Chinese etc food made by natives.

At the end of the meal, they asked if I wanted my name added to the list of people who are allowed to order a 4 (apparently, they only allow you to move one level at a time). I declined.

I went again this evening. This time, I decided not to provoke them. I just ordered a 3. Just to find out what a real 3 is. Not the 3 that you get when you try to be macho and ask for a 7. The waitress warned me that 3 is really spicy.

I love spicy food. But this was at the limits of what I can even eat. If this is a 3, what's a 4?

Next time, I'm going to order a 2.

But I have to wonder. If THAT is a 3, what is a 10? And there's something beyond the 10?

There was an authentic Thai restaurant around here in the past. They had a range of hotness like they most all do, and then if you really knew what you were getting into you could ask for it to be "Thai Hot". "Thai Hot" involved a crap load of fresh chilies, chili oil, and molten lava of some sort. If you were pale skinned, and they did not know you from previous visits, they would discourage you, and then if you insisted, make you sign a waver saying you could not send it back. You could eat a bite, then spend 5 minutes trying to catch your breath, your skin would turn red due to your blood vessels dilating, and you'd sweat profusely. It was insane and exhilarating to eat that stuff. It did keep you from eating too much.

It does vary per dish. Dishes with a lot of coconut milk dial it down somewhat. Dishes that have a lot of acid tone it down somewhat. So you may be able to dial up the heat a notch above what "level" you are comfortable enough with some dishes. And some authentic dishes are not that hot at all normally but more of a balance of sweet and sour and spicy. But the right (or wrong depending on your view) one... wham!

It also usually depends on the chef. Some chefs perceptions of hotness are different then others. I can't give you the breakdown for Thailand, but as an example you will experience this in some Indian restaurants where they serve both North and authentic South Indian foods. If the South Indian chef makes your North Indian dish, or a chef from Goa makes it, or a chef from Bengal makes it, it might be dialed up a notch or two on the hotness scale compared to the chef from Punjab. Because that's how they roll. South Indian food is more like Thai/Vietnamese food in a lot of ways, where North Indian food is very much influenced by Muslim foods and spices. Bengali food is a mix of them all. And authentic Bengali food is cooked in mustard oil. In the US mustard oil is almost a controlled substance it seems. You can only really find it (except for online) in Indian groceries that serve Bengali communities, and it's often labeled as "not for human consumption" because of government regulations here. I can tell you that Bengali's regularly consume it. But not in its raw state.

And yeah, I've got lots of Indian (in my case mostly Bengali and South Indian) and Sichuan province friends, I've eaten all their authentic food, I know how to prepare authentic Indian and Sichuan foods... and except for some Portuguese influenced Indian foods, I've never had anything else like that "Thai Hot". Maybe the only other thing was some kind of Ethiopian dish which amounted to a hot pepper stuffed with diced hot peppers and covered with some hot pepper sauce that I don't remember the name of, but I do remember the day after eating it LOL. But I think that dish varies greatly due to the peppers selected, and I just got lucky.

Wow, that does sound hot.

I like this post BP a interesting read. I also love hot and spicy, but sounds like you found your max. If a 3 is that hot, how could there even be a 10.......I'd love to go to that place. I eat a lot of hot, chille, wings and ribs, and ethnic but there is a limit for me also. We eat a lot of hot 'wings' around here and have for years because they started in Buffalo, NY not far from me. I have my limits too, if I can't enjoy the food because of the heat then it's too hot. I spent some time in southern CA. and ate a lot of food that was TOO Hot say the least...spicy. I really don't care for habanero peppers hot yes but don't care for the flavor. jalapeno and cayenne are my favorites, but I like thai peppers in chille but not to overdo. I growed a lot of peppers over the years and a hot dry summer makes for better heat.

Habanero does have an interesting flavor that could be offputting to folks. I like them a lot better blended with sweet carrots and lime juice and some caramelized or roasted onions and garlic then straight up. That seems to balance out that flavor better. And it's still plenty hot.

berryman wrote:I like this post BP a interesting read. I also love hot and spicy, but sounds like you found your max. If a 3 is that hot, how could there even be a 10.......I'd love to go to that place. I eat a lot of hot, chille, wings and ribs, and ethnic but there is a limit for me also. We eat a lot of hot 'wings' around here and have for years because they started in Buffalo, NY not far from me. I have my limits too, if I can't enjoy the food because of the heat then it's too hot. I spent some time in southern CA. and ate a lot of food that was TOO Hot say the least...spicy. I really don't care for habanero peppers hot yes but don't care for the flavor. jalapeno and cayenne are my favorites, but I like thai peppers in chille but not to overdo. I growed a lot of peppers over the years and a hot dry summer makes for better heat.

They won't even let anybody order anything higher than a 3 until they order a 3 and tell them it isn't hot enough. Then they put your name in a book and let you order a 4 next time. They won't let you go up more than 1 per visit. I'm glad they talked me out of a 7.

bpgreen wrote:

berryman wrote:They won't let you go up more than 1 per visit. I'm glad they talked me out of a 7.

I love spicy food, and Thai food in particular. I went to a Thai restaurant in Queenstown, NZ. It was a tiny place, and my friend and I were seated next to a long table full of Thai men. One of them who spoke English heard me order green curry. He turned to me and said, “You know dat’s hot!” I said I hoped so. My curry was delivered and it was pretty hot but not beyond my limits. Until I bit into a vegetable I didn’t recognize. It was some sort of chili born in Hell, and I started to sweat, and got the hiccups. But I couldn’t react verbally or gulp my tea or anything because I could see that guy watching me. I made it through the meal, but the next morning was no fun...

In the thai resturaunt I mentioned, this woman I worked with picked a dried chili of mystery out of her dish (not your normal thai bird chili) and was eyeing it. I suggested that she should probably not eat it considering how hot the food was all on it's own. Which she took as some sort of dare (I did not mean it to be). She didn't talk for at least 10 minutes. I was afraid spontaneous human combustion was going to happen.

alb wrote:I love spicy food, and Thai food in particular. I went to a Thai restaurant in Queenstown, NZ. It was a tiny place, and my friend and I were seated next to a long table full of Thai men. One of them who spoke English heard me order green curry. He turned to me and said, “You know dat’s hot!” I said I hoped so. My curry was delivered and it was pretty hot but not beyond my limits. Until I bit into a vegetable I didn’t recognize. It was some sort of chili born in Hell, and I started to sweat, and got the hiccups. But I couldn’t react verbally or gulp my tea or anything because I could see that guy watching me. I made it through the meal, but the next morning was no fun...

I didn't get the hiccups, but I was definitely sweating pretty heavily. I think my face was probably pretty red, also, because the waitress came to the table looking concerned and asked if I wanted her to "fix" the food for me. I told her that I liked it, but agreed that it was hotter than I expected.

And the next morning was no problem for me (actually, for whatever reason, that never seems to hit me that way).

I wonder if I got a different dish the first time, since I don't remembering it burning quite that much. I got the green curry this time, but I may have gotten something with more coconut the last time.

I'm really craving some authentic Indian/this food all of a sudden!

Don't know where this falls on the heat scale to what you guys are talking about but, Quaker Steak and Lubes Atomic sauce for their wings is WAAAAYYY over too hot for me! A friend ordered these with a little of the sauce on the side ( little condiment cup w/lid ) only wanted to smell it, smell took my breath away (should have been a hint), dripped just about a pinheads worth on my finger, "what harm can this little bit do?", to my taste FIRE! I believe their Atomic is habanero pepper.

That sounds like a pretty awesome place. Most of the Thai places here are really good, but they have to be prompted to let you get it spicy. I am usually around a '4' out of 5 (or a zero at your place), but my wife constantly begs them to go hotter. I wonder if she would like that 3?

I can feel my mouth burning and my lips tingling as I read through this thread. I like spicy and flavorful but not hot just for the sake of hot.
I also know from eating with others that my threshold for hot is lower than others.