pain and pleasure in your mouth - the spicy food thread

My favorite thai joint, Madam Mam's makes a chili-laden pork and fish soup, the NS-14, aka Guay Teaw Tom Yum Moo with Peanut, rated two peppers out of a possible four on their menu. It is probably about the spiciest thing I have ever eaten for pleasure, and I enjoyed a bowl of it tuesday night. The gastric distress I experienced yesterday was a small price to pay, in the long run. I fear the 4 pepper dishes like a vole fears an owl, though.

a friend once described the pleasure of strong wasabi as being, "you think you're going to die, but then you don't" -- which kind of sums up super-spicy food for me. i love how when you get halfway into, say, pad kee mao, your only real option is to keep going because you feel the heat more if you slow down.

there are some very good habanero salsas that have the same effect.

Taking sides:

cooked or raw salsa?

I usually just blend the ingredients I have, then serve. Important: balancing sweet with the spicy (carrots and bell pepper usually add the sweet in mine) and putting enough citrus - preferably lime - in for proper preservation.

There's a dish at Pam Real Thai (midtown) that claims to be the spiciest traditional Thai dish - it's called Gang Tai Pla and involves "fermented fish kidney," which is honestly more what has scared me from ordering it than the spiciness.

CHICKEN MADRAS, INNIT

Cooked and raw are both good depending on circumstances, ingredients, mood, other foods, etc. But never bell peppers. Never.

Larb/laab/larp is the thing I like the hottest I believe. That and a particular stiry fry I make with peanuts, thai basil, super finely diced chicken or port, and beans or asparagus.

i can eat me some spicy food. i remember a time when i was having a curry with some friends and one of them was crying at the heat of his meal, and i swapped him for my milder dish. suffice to say, i wolfed his down with nary a hesitation. so i figure i can handle a hot meal, although to be honest, i would rarely order something really hot because you end up not actually being able to taste what you're eating, which is a bit silly.

however, recently i went for a nice family meal to a new place in town, and i thought i'd go for one of the non-generic regional dishes, the name of which has been struck from my memory. it was three peppers out of four, so i didn't expect it to be particularly hot. i will say that i made a valiant effort, but i left that plate half full and left the restaurant in agony. i tried to plough through but i couldn't eat it. i dont know what was in it, but it was evil and i hope the rest was carefully disposed of. now i'm a changed man. i'm afraid of what the next meal might hold. it's omelette and chips for me from here on out. possibly.

This is great. I love all kinds of food but spicy foods hold a special place in my heart.

Hottest dish I've ever eaten: In the group house where I lived in college, some housemates kept a garden in the backyard. They grew a few different kinds of chilis, most notably habeneros, but they all cross-bred and all of them ended up being as hot as the habeneros anyway. So one night I unknowingly threw together a Thai-basil stir-fry with all these chilis, threw on a hard bop record (I think it was Jackie McLean?), and it was utter hell. The hard bop just made it even that more intense. I have an extremely high tolerance for spicy foods (or else I just enjoy the pain), but this was a bit too much. Imagine: 60% habeneros/other peppers just as hot, 30% tofu, 10% basil/sauce/etc. The rice didn't do anything to calm the pain, the chilis were just too hot.

(One) favorite spicy flavor: chipotle peppers, something about the smoky-hotness of them is soo good. They're good even just right out of the can, but that's pretty damn hot. especially this brand:

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Images/lmchip_150.jpg

Favorite restaurants with really good, complex spicy food: Phnom Penh - Cambodian/southeast Asian food in Cleveland. The Khmer noodles are amazing. Cafe Tandoor in Cleveland. All those nice spicy condiments and ground chilis at Amsterdam Falafel in DC. Drunken Noodles at Bangkok Bistro in DC.

I love the different kinds of spicyness, e.g. the slow-build hot of Indian curries vs. the painfully intense but ephemeral wasabi/hot mustard hotness vs. the wonderfully fresh hotness of a nice raw salsa.

btw, I love both cooked and raw salsas. I'd usually pick raw salsas because that means they're usually just made there in the home, but home-made, canned cooked salsas can be utterly amazing.

oooohhh how could I forget?? Hot pickle condiments at Indian restaurants - such an incredible combination of hot, sweet, sour, and pungent flavors. One of the most aggressive foods I've ever had. The one at above-mentioned Cafe Tandoor in Cleveland is incredible.

Yeah, one of the amazing things about the soup I mentioned up there is that it is not only very hot, but it is also incredibly savory because of the intense fish sauce.

My workmate's tolerance for spicy food is so low he once had to abandon a packet of Worcester sauce flavour crisps because his mouth hurt. Can any of your readers beat this?

That's pretty lame. On the same level, a former coworker wouldn't eat pepperoni pizza because it was too hot. The only time I don't add crushed red pepper to pizza is if it already has jalapenos.

I love those crisps. I phoned up Walkers and offered to take the ones with Sudan 1 in off their hands.

My friend Simon was paranoid that the sausages I made the other week would be too hot for him because there was A WHOLE TEASPOON of mustard powder in them. That's in over 3kg. I do not have an update as to whether they actually were.

I love the different kinds of spicyness, e.g. the slow-build hot of Indian curries vs. the painfully intense but ephemeral wasabi/hot mustard hotness vs. the wonderfully fresh hotness of a nice raw salsa.

True, true. I sort of wonder what it would be like to combine these hotnesses - so that you got an explosive rush that stayed aflame. Probably bloody painful is what.

Drunken Noodles at Bangkok Bistro in DC.

The drunken noodles at the Bangkok Bistro in Boston is awesome! i wonder if they're related. does the DC one have a special called 'One Night in Bangkok'?

a former coworker wouldn't eat pepperoni pizza because it was too hot

Haha this actually came to light after he gave me his pepperoni pizza for the same reason

xpost -- hmm I'm not sure. They could very well be related, though.

My poor mother is exactly like that. She can't stand black pepper and picks off pepperoni if the sauce is also a little spicy -- both together are too much for her.

Also there was always a sort of value judgement made against one of my sets of grandparents that had to do with their more highly seasoned food...but we were told it was because of their filthy, sinful, un-God-ly smoking habits, that their sense of taste was numbed and in need of greater and GREATER STIMULATION, CERTAIN TO RESULT IN CORRUPTION AND RUIN, OH NO!

Midwesterners. Sigh.

My MIL thought that the Morningstar Foods brand black bean burgers were "too spicy!" Inexplicably, she's from California (but she's lived in Wisconsin for a long time, so maybe that's the problem). It makes me sad because she is yet another person who won't go out with me for Indian food. Or, you know, anything with an actual taste.

I've lived in Minnesota my whole life, so I suppose that makes me a Midwesterner, but I love spicy/hot foods. No wonder I've always felt out of place.

My midwesterner parents (minnesota, wisconsin) can't handle anything remotely spicy. I used to be the same way but now.. most DC restaurants aren't spicy enough... I usually go to korean or chinese markets in the suburbs to pick up hot peppers and chili sauce

favorite thing lately - tamarind candy from vietnam, it's basically chunks of tamarind rolled with sugar and hot chili, so you get tangy, sweet, and spicy all at once.

Spicy food is SO YUM...I always make everything too spicy for others' tastes. More for me, haha! Clears out yr sinuses during cold season and somehow it seems more filling, maybe because you just can't eat as much of it.

I think a curry is in the works for tonight. Oh god yum.

You do kind of have to eat it every day or it can give you Earthquake Gut.

Okay gotta defend the Midwestern turf now. My siblings and I -- most of us born in Ohio (or Chicago), all raised there, have some insanely high tolerances to spicy foods. My brother-in-law's family -- all born and raised Nebraskans, make some painfully hot salsas. Yea Midwestern food is typically boring, but there are some crazy hot salsas being made here. For the best hot ethnic food places, no I wouldn't look here (though the Cleveland restaurants I mentioned upthread are amazing for spicy foods), but keep in mind that in the Midwest you will find those good ol' American hot sauces that come in tiny bottles that blow your mind off. I prefer the ethnic varieties of spicy foods, as they tend to be more complex, but don't brush aside those tiny little bottles that require two drops to fire up your dish.

"What's wrong with iceberg lettuce? You've got your roughage, you've got your water...it's a little spicy, though." - Stephen Colbert

lolz

SPICIEST THINGS I EVER ATE

1. fen si (potato starch noodles???? like vermicelli) at a sichuan place in xuzhou, where the soupmaking process was a big, complex secret that was still being worked on, the auntie running out of the kitchen saying, "oooohhh, i forgot to put this in!!!" and dumping in a soup spoon full of murky brown liquid. oily, so superhot, and spicy and made your mouth and esophagus numb, too, and eating it is straight up like getting electrocuted at first, then just like a steady hot pain, painful but something else, i dunno. you get bits of stale bread to dunk in the soup and i keep them on the side to save my mouth.

2. beef laab at nit's thai food in moose jaw, saskatchewan. fresh bird chilis.

3. ban mian near where i worked in xuzhou. again, brick red soup, oily as fuck, full of soup-engorged chilis and seeds. painfully hot, again. slow burning pain style again.

4. GHOST BLOOD (鬼血旺), again chili oil, just chilis steeped in oil, a great idea, and black ox stomach and guts, guts, guts.

5. weird red korean rice.

There were a couple of dishes at the Indonesian place in Amsterdam that made me see about three weeks into the future (through tears).

http://www.jonco48.com/blog/baby_2Dtunnel.gi

^^^ me, after ordering a curry at level 10/10 at an indian restaurant once

http://www.jonco48.com/blog/baby_2Dtunnel.gif

I went to a high school friend's baby shower where me, the wife, another friend from HS and his parents were the only white people - everyone else was Indian. HS friend's mom made a bunch of vegetarian Indian food and was really worried that we wouldn't like it. We told her it was great, that we loved Indian food and everything was delicious.

She told us that she was worried about people being freaked out so she made it way less spicy than she normally would have, which was insane because it was still mind-bogglingly hot.

What's the best place in Manhattan for truly spicy Indian that's still edible. Not Brick Lane Curry because their phaal is just...mush. Hot but mush. Can be a price-y joint, too.
Also, who makes the best Thai Drunken Noodle in NYC?

I love me some spicy food. Hotter the better.

My favorite thai joint, Madam Mam's makes a chili-laden pork and fish soup, the NS-14,

this is the only thing i ever order there

Another Minnesotan representing for the SPICY. I was told this morning by a Jamaican who ate some keema peas curry I'd made for her yesterday that I was to go and help her sister out in her Caribbean cafe because I had given her the sweats, but in a good way. I mean I essentially fed her Punjabi mommy Hamburger Helper but still.

Me too, Hoos. I just wish it was less complicated to eat. I take it with bean-thread noodle, which is a little easier to handle than the other options, but I still need to tuck in my napkin like a bib and often end up getting a lot of broth droplets on the table. I probably just need a better understanding of the mechanics of spoon and chopsticks.

Spice lovers pls to explain to me the appeal! It just hurts my mouth and makes me sick. I dont understand impossibly hot food. I love tasty spices and mild curries but why punish ones face and belly?

The easiest way to explain is with a sex metaphor, as is almost always the case.

"Can't be expressed by a single fuck,
I want to gently caress it and bang it up."
-Boots Riley

i am from minnesota. i can hang.

Oilys

have you been to that dive-y thai place behind the 7-11 on guad/26th?

their red curry slays, dude. it has replaced mam's as my fave thai place in town.

I have eaten there many times, but still prefer Mam's. Titaya's up by the Half Price Books is also good. Thai Kitchen there around 32nd is not so bad, either. Greater emphasis on seafood at Thai Kitchen, I think.

Thai thai thai thai thai.

HOORAY!

What's the best place in Manhattan for truly spicy Indian that's still edible. Not Brick Lane Curry because their phaal is just...mush. Hot but mush. Can be a price-y joint, too.
Also, who makes the best Thai Drunken Noodle in NYC?

yes these are good questions. ???

Titaya's up by the Half Price Books is also good.

my gf works at the goodwill right behind titaya's, but i have never been.

BEVERAGES TO QUELL SPICY PAIN S/D

Thai iced tea destroys the overspiced death. It's like smoked sugar milk.

Damn, son. You need to get on that shit.

Also, tell her to keep an eye out for 42 long suits.

where else to go in dc? spiciest food i had lately was out in falls church @ chinese place where the spicy tofu turned out to be a giant bowl of chilis in oil with some cubes of tofu in there. maybe i should go back to dukem for the lamb dish

Daria - try Mandalay, Burmese food in Silver Spring, I think. Maybe Takoma Park? In any case it's in Maryland somewhere. I ordered a dish that was basically 50% fried tofu and 50% chilis. Amazing. Every dish I tried there was amazing.

For Ethiopian, I've had a few but I really do think Meskerem is the best. The spicy potato dish is amazing, same goes for the fresh tomato one with diced chilis.

I think Nirvana (all vegetarian), has some great Indian food, as does Jyoti on 18th. But as with most of the Indian places I've been to, you really do have to specify very hot/spicy (so long as you don't look Indian) and insist on it. I've been to a few places where they try to convince me that I don't actually want it hot. It's annoying.

I'm sure there are some others in DC that I'm forgetting. I think I mentioned Bangkok Bistro for Drunken noodles, I'd stick with that one. Pho 79 is a good Vietnamese place in Cleveland Park, and has a few spicy dishes. They also keep Sriracha (I think that's how it's spelled - that spicy, tangy red Chinese condiment?) on the tables.

thanks. there's a chinese place on 6th that makes their own noodles and it's super cheap.. with bottles of sriracha plus some chili sauce and garlic on the table. without fail i put in way too much hot sauce but it's still good

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-15183070

"It was very painful and felt like I was being chainsawed in the stomach with hot sauce on the chainsaw.

you can't pay for that kind of publicity

http://foodbeast.com/content/2012/12/10/instant-regret-peanut-butter-is-so-hot-its-not-suitable-for-children-pets-or-the-elderly/

not gonna lie: if i knew where i could find this, i'd be eating it right now.