The local Indian and Thai restaurants ask you to rate how spicy you would like your food to be, typically on a one-to-five scale. The reasoning behind this should be apparent.
Now, I have no aversion to spice. In fact, I revel in it. At the same time, I figure that asking for five is like daring the cook. "Oh, a five," he'd say. "Like it hot, do you? Well, see how you like this." And he would then proceed to hurl you into his tandoori oven, whereupon you are consumed by the fires of Kali. Visions of my fiery torment danging before my eyes, I stick with the safer route and ask for a four rating.
I went to an Indian restaurant for dinner tonight, a place almost literally around the corner from my apartment. I've been there a few times before and quite liked the cooking. Delicate balance, dances on the palate and all that. Plus, the staff are friendly. When I ordered my food, the waitress asked me how spicy I'd like my food, on a scale of one to seven.
"Seven," thought I to myself. "Truly, this place is a jewel amongst the heavens. Not only is their food subtle in its preperation, not only is the staff friendly, but they cater to a more gradiated spice tolerance. No mere five point scale for them. Rather the chef's fingers are so nimble that he can add but the tiniest bit of spice to the mix and, like Moses parting the Sea of Reeds, divide a five-point scale into a much finer, a far more discerning seven. Oh, truly chef, I applaud your skill."
Exactly what I thought. No lie.
I did the math and chose a six. A little hotter than what would normally be a four, I figured, but not at the maximal level, the one that would tempt culinary vindictiveness. Besides, I'd never been bothered by a four in the past. Why would what effectively amounted to a four-point-five trouble me? I should have known something was up when the waitress gave me a funny look before she left.
The scale of this restaurant is not, in fact, a finer version of the regular scale. It just goes higher.
This food in front of me and the waitress, I suspect, spying on me through a hole cut in the wall, I did the only thing I could. I wept. With every bite, my eyes streamed tears. With every swallow, my sinuses filled. The food, lamb in a coconut sauce, was delightful, though I confess it was a little hard to taste the coconut through all of the searing pain.
It's now thirty minutes since my last bite and my innards feel as if they are a furnace. I can feel my guts fuse together and then disintegrate in the glare of that awful heat. My lips, where they touched the sauce, feel as if they've been torn up with razorwire. I think I've permanently damaged not only my tastebuds, but also my equilibrium.
And yet, next time I'm tempted to ask for a seven.
Comments (10)
Wise choice. We cooks are a damn vindictive lot. If you ask for something "really spicy" we're liable to just dump the jar/bottle/canister/control rod into the pan and laugh our fiendish culinary laugh at the foolish mortal customers.
Actually, rather like we do when someone orders their steak "well done"...
Posted by Bard | March 3, 2005 7:57 PM
Posted on March 3, 2005 19:57
I went to a Thai place once whose scale was 1-10. The funny thing is, they actually kept track of their customers, and you weren't allowed to order anything 6 or higher until you had actually had a 5. Then, in turn, you couldn't have a 7 until you'd had a 6, and so forth. There was a sort of hall of fame of the people who had actually made it to 10 in the form of portrait-sized photographs with name plates around the main room of the restaurant. I think there were maybe 6 or 7 total.
Posted by Lukas | March 3, 2005 7:58 PM
Posted on March 3, 2005 19:58
Yeah, Bard. I've been around cooks for enough of my life to have figured that bit out. I suspect that the oddly chequered pants have a strange impact on their brain.
Lukas: That is awesome. I so want to go to this place and meet their challenge. I'd go in Homer Simpson style, having first covered my tongue with a thin coating of wax. I would rule.
Posted by Jason | March 3, 2005 9:33 PM
Posted on March 3, 2005 21:33
Its the chequered pants radiation. The checks function to conduct and filter deadly Server Radiation, which is distilled into "frenetic energy", which in turn is channeled through nanoscopic wiring in our whites, allowing us to perform acumen-defying acts such as flipping liquids in pans, turning objects on the grill without burning our hands, and covering ourselves with boiling liquids (often by accident) without injury.
Yoga masters have a similar trick, but they hide their nanoscopic wiring in their turbans and connect it to their loin clothes via xi-ray transmassion. This in turn produces an anti-logic field which extends over their feet, allowing them to walk on burning coals.
Anyway, the chequered pants radiation tends to have adverse effects on our brains. We make up words like "xi-rays", blabber on for hours about seemingly meaningless subjects, and deride customers for being fools and ordering their steaks well done, which is basically asking for us to substitute a hockey puck for your food.
Posted by Bard | March 3, 2005 11:25 PM
Posted on March 3, 2005 23:25
I love that episode, especially the guest appearance of Johnny Cash as the spirit coyote. I think it was on last night, actually.
Posted by Lukas | March 4, 2005 8:53 AM
Posted on March 4, 2005 08:53
D'oh! I missed it 'cause I was dying from spiciness!
Bard: I need to get me some of these chequered pants. Truly, they are a powerful tool.
Posted by Jason | March 4, 2005 9:51 AM
Posted on March 4, 2005 09:51
Kinda makes you think twice about Spinal Tap, doesn't it?
Was there something to that speaker that went up to 11?
Posted by Marc | March 4, 2005 4:47 PM
Posted on March 4, 2005 16:47
What's great about your comment, Marc, is that in my original version of this post I had actually made the Spinal Tap reference, but I couldn't get it to sound right.
Your brain is awesome.
Posted by Jason | March 4, 2005 4:58 PM
Posted on March 4, 2005 16:58
I read this to Dave out loud and he laughed his @$$ off.
He asks "Didn't you ever see 'This is Spinal Tap'? 'But...it goes to elevent..."
Posted by Bekah | March 5, 2005 5:10 AM
Posted on March 5, 2005 05:10
Yup. Just like Marc said. You must be on the same frequency. Dave's brain is also awesome.
Posted by Jason | March 5, 2005 9:53 AM
Posted on March 5, 2005 09:53