How hot is hot enough???

[Murph]

Ok, I like hot and spicy food, bu this has to be the end:
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Show...vgnextfmt=show

Brick Lane Curry House: Phaal curry, the hottest in the world.

How hot can you handle?

Normal eating: Three alarm chili, good spicy Thai food, stuff like that, I am good with.

http://www.quakersteakandlube.com/ Their Atomic Wings at 150,000 Scoville units are just too hot for me. 60-100,000 is my upper limit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville

[Duffy Pratt]

When I was living in Minnesota, Pace test marketed a new variety of their salsa, since they had never had much success in the upper midwest. The new variety was: Extra-mild! It failed. The focus groups complained that it was too spicy....

I've never tested myself on the Scoville scale. What I can take (alot), is different than what I enjoy (still alot, but not quite so much -- I like flavor to co-exist with the heat).

Duffy

[johnastovall]

As the great chile man, Frank X. Tolbert said, "If it doesn't make your forehead sweat, it's too mild."

[darktiger]

I usually am comfortable with 5-6million Scoville units (Blair's 5am), but I have tasted Blair's Caldera which is around 12million scolville. But I am realizing the older I get the milder the sauce. I usually put Blair's 3am on a lot of my food....

[groovyone]

I just watched that curry episode. That show is great. One episode he ate the Hell Pasta at a restaraunt that used 3 ghost chilies in it. He had two bites and was in tears.

[kenw]

my coworkers in the far east used to seem to enjoy contests with 'how hot is hot". Personally, most of the stuff they seemed enjoy i found simply hot for hot's sake and totally without taste. Spice should add to the taste, not BE the taste.

[Duffy Pratt]

In Sichuan province in China, the food is not as hot as typical Sichuan food here in the U.S. Instead, it has an incredible diversity of flavor that I haven't found anywhere else in the world. There's still plenty of heat, but the heat is not really what drives the cuisine. So, yeah, I agree with Ken. The spice should add to the taste.

Duffy

[3n-Out]

I once bought this hot sauce called "Fire Water". So damn hot It would bring you to your knees, the recovery time was hours. LOL.. Almost killed a couple of my friends. Just sticking a toothpic in the stuff would leave you looking for relief.

[jgrindal]

Originally Posted by darktiger

I usually am comfortable with 5-6million Scoville units (Blair's 5am), but I have tasted Blair's Caldera which is around 12million scolville. But I am realizing the older I get the milder the sauce. I usually put Blair's 3am on a lot of my food....

Umm, I think you're off an order of magnitude - 5mil Scoville is more than pepper spray, and, while it would be funny to see you pull out a can of mace to season your french fries, I don't think you're there....

Now, at 500K (habanero pepper) I could go with.

[Night Owl]

Sriracha is about the top of my comfort level and I was disappointed to discover it rates only a measly 2000 on the Scoville scale. Had some today on my fried rice at Tan Tan on Bellaire.

[Murph]

I learned to never walk into a Thai restraunt and tell them to "hurt me". They will.

[Night Owl]

Originally Posted by Murph

I learned to never walk into a Thai restraunt and tell them to "hurt me". They will.

Same could be said for their massage parlors.

[Murph]

My two alarm chili tonight turned out to be three or four alarm! Tasty but really hot.

[Howard Barlow]

I love spicy food. Tex-Mex, Cajun, Indian, etc. Really spicy. We went to a particular Indian restaurant in St. Pete, Ru. I ordered a dish that offered mild, med, hot, x hot. I ordered hot. The waiter, an Indian gentleman, perhaps the manager by his dress, immediately said "No, you cannot order hot. It is too hot for you."

We had a discussion of my preferences. However, he was persistent. He simply would not let me order it. So, I ordered medium heat. Talk about fire from every orifice of my body! I think it burned a few new ones.

I don't know what they used, but it would strip a battleship to bare metal, I'm sure.

[JJOC]

I enjoy hot food but heat for the sake of heat is meaningless. The heat needs to add to the food. It is all about the blend of flavors. When we were in Bali, my wife ordered the curried prawns at the Thai restaurant after asking how hot it was. The reply was not hot at all. She could not eat it. It literally burned her lips.

As to Brick lane, anyone who goes to London knows that is the place to go for curry. But you can find good curry in London just about anywhere if you know where to look.