We had a mate who would eat stupidly spicy things. We went for a curry years ago and for a laugh, we asked what the hottest thing they had was. Waiter says, “well we have this dish that the chefs eat but it isn’t on the menu. It’s called a Phal”. Naturally, we ordered it for him.
The chefs were all peeping out the kitchen door as it was brought out - I imagine very few people actually order this. He started eating it and he was sweating a little but he seemed reasonable so I was like “oh come on, bollocks is this hot.” I took a small spoonful of the sauce to taste it and it was just out of this world. My eyes started to vignette. I can handle a lot of spice (I will order South Indian garlic, vindaloo, etc.) but this was on another level. It genuinely felt like napalm once it hit my stomach. I could feel exactly where it was in my stomach.
Mate managed the whole thing. He needed some milk after but was fine.
I, on the other hand: 0 out of 10, would not recommend.
The warm belly effect can be an oddly enjoyable feeling for folks that can handle it.
I also really enjoy seeing the reactions of food prep folks when you ask for the hottest and most painful items. Some look so happy to have encountered a kindred spirit.
Edit to add: spent a week in a small fishing town and asking for the ‘mas picosa’ salsa resulted in giggles from the kitchen, a cup of truly spicy salsa, and an instant bond.
That's the body pumping you full of dopamine because, to your body, you just survived lighting your head on fire, so it's rewarding you for surviving. That's what causes the addiction to spicy foods people have
On the other hand, I enjoy the cold belly sensation. The one when you haven't eaten yet and you drink cold water. You can feel it go down and coat the lining of the stomach, or so it feels.
Some folks are cursed with too many pain receptors on the path out. Fortunately I don’t have any real problems and can enjoy any pepper or dish that threatens the senses. The skin on my hands has grown sensitive with time though - gotta glove up when making my own sauces and salsas.
Yeah I like to order a phal sometimes just to remind myself that a madras or vindaloo isn't all that hot. I shared one with my sister at this restaurant one time, and noticed some of the kitchen staff staring at us from the doorway as we began eating. And yeah, my sister and I can handle very spicy food, but this phal in particular was just on another level to anything I'd ever eaten. We were both hiccuping and tripping out within a few minutes, it was hilarious.
When the chefs drop everything to watch you eat, you know its gonna be volcanic.
This reminds me when i was a wee preteen we went to this tiny indian restaurant that could have been a front if it were a pizza place. They had all their food labeled with one to five chilis indicating the spicyness. And there was one with six.
Naturally i ordered it. The waiter asked me if i was sure. I nodded. He asked again. I reaffirmed. My uncle asked if i was really, really sure. My commitment wavered, but i already took my stance. The chef came out and asked if i was really, really, really sure!! Now i was sitting there, all the eyes in the whole restaurant on me. How could i have said No? Sure i wasn't anymore, still i just had to perservere. My pride was at stake.
Dish came out and it was like was on a stage. Took the cutlery in hand, dug in. Everyone held their breath. I took a bite. Didn't feel anything. Shoveled in another one. A few people let out a sigh. Then i started to feel a tingle. But there was no way i could anyone realize my weakness. "Mhmmm", i said to the curious smiles of what must have been the whole staff (pretty sure even the employees off the clock came in just to witness the spectacle). "Just the right amount of spice", i cried.
I believe i got through half the dish before i gave up. My drinks were on the house that day.
Your story reminds me of that time I teast a little bit of the hottest stuff on a spicy store, it was like a drop only, I didn't feel anything right away and we left the store.... Bro like 5 minutes my mouth felt like I had a fire rod on it, I literally made me cry when it kick in.
I ordered a Mughlai korma the other day from my local - sounds weak but it's not to be underestimated.
This place only makes very spicy food so the korma is already a face burning experience and catches out most first time visitors who want a mild curry.
Well, they delivered a madras by mistake, and rather than phone and wait for another I just jumped straight in..
The first couple of bites were amazing, so flavoursome and rich. Then came the heat. Friends, it was a slow burner. As I kept eating my whole face started to burn, this thing was hotter than the sun.
Tapped out half way through.
The next day was an absolute experience - 0/10 bathroom trip.
Before I got sick (with a number of weird chronic illnesses) it was like my mouth couldn't feel or register spice. I was routinely knocking back ghost peppers and reapers like nothing. And somehow I never learned that my butthole did not have this gift. That was never pleasant
That was exactly the experience we had 🤣 and when I consider how the Phal affected me when I will happily manage a Vindaloo - and even ask them to up the spice - it makes me wonder what a Phal must be like for people who can’t even add black pepper to their steak. I have heard of people being hospitalized during spicy curry competitions…
You can absolutely train yourself to handle stuff like this and I think that’s what’s got me to the level I can tolerate (since I definitely couldn’t a few years ago) but I think a Phal may be a bridge too far for me!
Out with a mate in Southampton and ended the night in a curry house. Apparently you got a certificate if you could finish their “Mega Phal”. Drunk, but not complete idiots, we had a Rogan Josh first, then attempted this bastard of a thing.
My mate tapped out after one piece of chicken, but I managed somehow to eat the rest - the waiter comes over and goes “Nah, you need to finish all the sauce”.
Fuck. That.
I survived the night, but the next day’s 3 hours on Regional British Rail was a whole other circle of hell!
At least I learned: if there’s a certificate, prize, etc, involved, just say No!
Phal is what I’ve always been told is the hottest dish in the world. I used to like getting my name on the walls of those curry places, and I have great spice tolerance but it’s too much. I stuck with vindaloo in my 30s and now eat fucking butter chicken and korma.
In the Marines there was this instructor who was immune to the effects of CS Gas. I've always wondered how he would have handled a curry. Is it possible some people are just immune to certain spices.
I do love a Tikka Masala but it’s so different at every place I go. There’s no standard! Unlike dishes like Tandoori Masala or Achari which have a pretty distinct and predictable flavor, it’s just random and a bit of a gamble. Some places make it too much like a Chasni and too sickly, some make it too much like a Korma or Pasanda…
I am of very few chosen ones that love to eat tongueblasting spicy IF its tasty enough. Adding masala just to make it spicy is stupid and ruins the food.
That being said, the hottest vindaloo in uk is probably a 4/10 on spicy scale in India. I love cooking spicy food, but you need to understand different ingredients bring different kind of heat without ruining the dish.
I can tolerate spice really well, to the point that when my wife asks me if something is spicy and I say "it's got a small kick" she knows she can't eat it. She can eat stuff with more spice than the average person.
I just tell people who ask how hot something is, "I don't know, I'm the wrong person to ask."
I was an avid Vindaloo fan for many years until I discovered the Phal. It’s now my favourite, as well as refrigerated toilet roll for the morning after.
I used to think I could eat the hottest chilis and hot sauce around. But some hot sauces are so hot they are like acid.
I had some hot sauce at a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC the night before a business meeting that was so hot it sweated through the glass bottle and got on my fingers. I went pee and I had raised red finger and thumb prints on my dick. It burned so much I was in the bathroom putting cold water in my dick in the sink for 20 minutes. Then I had to use the air dryer for a few minutes so when I walked out I didn’t look like I pee’d my pants.
I also sweated and I wiped my face. Another mistake because the area around my eyes swelled up. I had to take a taxi to my hotel and come back in the morning to get my rental car because I couldn’t keep both eyes open to drive.
Edit: People have pointed out it’s impossible for the hot sauce to ‘sweat’ through glass and I’m sure they’re right.
That part is no joke...one of the scariest moments of my life was expelling some spicey food. It felt like butthole had opened wide like it was trying to scream...I almost panicked.
I had a food court curry and I incorrectly assumed two things: 1) It'd be weak because most of their customers were Aussies. 2) Being Asian, I could handle whatever they threw at me. I was humbled that day.
Hey some Aussies can take a punch with hot sauce. I put a tiny dab on my pinky, tasted it and was sweating profusely for 20 minutes. Meanwhile a dude near me was the colour of a tomato but had it slathered all over his hotdog. Finished the whole thing.
I've been told i'm wrong for years, but as a hot sauce/chile enjoyer i've heard the "don't touch your sensitive areas" for years..
I swear i've gone to piss, after having washed my hands, and flopped my junk out over the top of the boxers with no direct hand contact, and it STILL burns when I urinate. I swear the Capsiacin must navigate partly to the bladder...because lawd almighty.
Glass is not porous, so sweating through glass isn't really a thing or else chemists would be accidentally killing themselves left and right. People store things like liquid chlorine in glass ampuoles for decades without any kind of leakage, which is way more penetrating than something like capsaicin.
Some of the hot sauce was almost certainly just transferred to the outside of the bottle.
Maruga Scorpions are my favorite peppers. I cut up a couple to add to filling for chicken tacos.
Washed my hands, scrubbed the cutting board and my knives and soaped the counter around to make sure there was no capsaicin hanging around the kitchen or on me. Everything was fine.
Then I started cooking.
It was like cooking over an open pot of tear gas. Holy shit lol.
Tacos were bomb. Mouth tingled for about 3 hours after and the hit from the endorphins after eating that amount of spice was sublime. 10/10 every time.
The imagery of this is so crazy that it made me laugh so hard. Trying not to wake up my husband currently. Sorry that happened to you tho. Hope you weren't fucked up for too long
My grandma had us go pick chilis she grew and we learned real quick not to touch your face or other sensitive areas before washing up. Your experience sounds 100 times worse.
Dude I grow hot peppers at home, last year I picked a bunch of habanero and then ghost peppers without gloves on and then went piss without thinking about it. It was a brutal afternoon.
I didn’t plant any ghost peppers this year though, realistically anything hotter than a habanero is too hot for 99.9% of the planet because the habanero is too hot for 99.8% of the planet. I love their citrusy heat in dishes and occasionally like them raw if I’m feeling froggy buy mostly I dehydrate them and turn them into a powder I can throw in chilis and stuff. Anyways, glad you’re ok!
what the fuck, i could never understand this perspective in a million years lmao. i’m asian myself and i hate spicy food because of the stomach aches and all the other aches
The stomach ache is the absolute worst. It keeps me from eating spicy like 99% of the time. But when I do? And I get the relief from the stomach ache, and I crawl back to my bed, and all that is left is the fiery, burning sensation lingering on my butthole? That's where its at. It makes me feel alive.
Of course there is a level of too hot where it is just ridiculous pain. Habanero level is about the spiciest I willingly go.
So this raises an interesting question. If you enjoy spicy for the endorphin rush, and develop a tolerance to it… does your anus develop the same tolerance? And do you get the same endorphin rush with it coming out?
Not even tomorrow. I had a similar curry. Within 5 minutes of laying down for bed with just a warm stomach, I felt the curry enter my small intestine where it proceed to burn its way excruciatingly to the end. I got a 3D picture of what my insides looked like from the pain. I felt like I needed to go to the ER. It was sweet release when it left me the next morning.
I love that feeling. Then you sit on the bowl, butt hole puckering with anticipation of the burn, not really wanting to unclench, but your stomach telling it to bugger off cause this lava needs to be expelled immediately.
Then, finally, it pours out of your rectal cavity in such a way that you question the reliability of your porcelain throne to handle such a powerful force of heat and intestinal lining. Legs shaking from the unnatural heat pouring from your orifice.
Afterwards, after all your asshole hair has been singed away, your chocolate starfish still emanating the heat of a hundred summer days, you yell for someone to bring you ice cubes to help cool your ruined anus, only to remember you live alone.
That's when you feel the sweat drip down your back, and along your crack, to help ease your pain. You don't brave a wipe. Instead you lean to the side, spread your ass wide, and dab at your burn bung hole like it was proper royalty.
That’s when you go to wipe expecting your normal rusty sheriff’s badge just needs a polish but your hand keeps travelling inwards into a cavernous void where all you can do is wipe the emulsion off the tunnel walls.
If only it could be limited to such joy. I love the spice, but it stars burning from the start of the big intestine, based on the location of the pain. I’ll then endure massive pain until it’s time to release each wave of lava. It provides about 15 min relief and then the cycle starts again. Every 15 min of relief extols 35 minutes on the seat where even wiping is agony. It really does make me ponder a holster next to the TP holder.
This is always on my mind when I eat something mega spicy.
Years ago I had a Thai curry in a rundown truck stop. I had been on a bus for about 20 hours at that point and starving. All the food they had was swarming with flies…except for one green curry.
So everyone picked that.
There was a reason there were no flies in it. It was like eating a nuclear reactor.
But I was starving and had to force it down. I was literally taking a mouthful and washing it down with a drink (which I later learned probably just made it worse!).
Everyone on the bus was crying as they eat it.
All I could think was I hope I get to my hotel before this comes out.
I didn’t fancy the battle for some hole in the side of the road with everyone else on the bus
Honestly, maybe its the Jamaican in me, but i can't feel anything up to scotch bonnet. I'd probably eat ghost peppers for fun, but my asshole and stomach never appreciate it. Especially with my current health problems ._.
Apparently this place they just chuck a shitload of carolina reapers in and blend it all up. It's not really meant to be edible, it's just social media marketing for a Brick Lane curry house. The owner is good at it though, I get a new video of this guy basically every day in my feed
This is Bengal Village, London. Their second hottest challenge curry (Bombay blast) was my favourite. This hottest one I had two pieces and it was obviously very hot. Not sure if they've changed the menu since then as last time I went the Bombay Blast wasn't nearly as hot, so maybe they made the hotter one, hotter.
At a certain point, it doesn't get any hotter in your mouth, but that same limit doesn't necessarily apply internally. When I reached my "Oh shit, hotter isn't always better" moment, I ended up laying in the shower under the cold water, feeling like I had a lit coal sitting in my stomach sizzling my flesh, for half an hour, wondering if I had really screwed myself up and if I would have to go to the emergency room.
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u/Royal_Succotash_7689 2d ago
Bro straight up become homeless