I like spicy foods. I eat them fairly regularly. Chicken, beef, fish – they are all undoubtedly aided in the flavour department by the addition of spices, chillies and a variety of unpronounceable heat additives. I get the concept: like seasoning, adding spice to a meal works wonders to add layers and undertones and other terms that people like Jamie Oliver and Nigella throw around on a regular basis, but my issue is this: one man’s ‘hot’ is another man’s ‘not’ and plenty times, I get the feeling that people add so much ‘heat’ to a meal that they taste little more than their own tongue being roasted.

For me, ‘hot’ food is Nando’s mild Peri- Peri sauce, or a dollop or two of Tabasco with some seafood. For others, a kilo of red chilli paste is a nice addition to a chicken dish, sometimes washed down with a glug of Tabasco sauce. To be honest, growing up in a white middle-class family in the suburbs wasn’t exactly the best place to cut my teeth on exotic, spicy foods.

If we consult Google, we’re told the heat of a chilli or chilli sauce (hotsauce, as the Yanks so eloquently put it) is measured on the Scoville Heat Scale. It’s called capsaicin, the thing that provides the heat, and it would appear that if this is the sort of thing you are after, you could buy a vile of the world’s hottest chilli ‘extract’ for around 245GBP for a 1ml vile. It seems this stuff is collected rather than imbibed or ingested (More on that here), but then why bother, seriously?

Add to my concern the already proven hereditary sweating problem I live with, and the prospect of testing hot foods was hardly an appealing evening’s work. It has been scientifically proven that given its combination of a ridiculously humid climate and eastern food, if I ever go to Durban I will burst into flames immediately.

With this in mind, and because we well know ‘heat’ is very much a subjective matter, I called in some reinforcements. Enter Andy, the ‘creative lead’ on Smartaboutwhat – the guy who comes up with most of the ‘fun’ tasks that I have to investigate. After having encouraged Shaun Koen the wrestler to pop my shoulder, and suggested that I touch an electric fence, I thought it would be only fair if Andy got in on some of the fun. Andy is more experienced when it comes to spicy food, and didn’t seem too stressed at the thought of potentially burning our tongues off. That theory flew swiftly out of the window when he arrived at the tasting with an assortment of foodstuffs strategically purchased to help alleviate the first hint of mouth burning (think anything and everything that involved the slightest hint of a dairy product).

When it came to finding the food, our Twitter followers pointed us in the direction of Bihari – an authentic North Indian eatery in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town. Kudos to our Twitter followers too, they know their restaurants. Bihari has fantastic decor, incredibly accommodating staff and some seriously good food.

The Plan

Given that we needed to set the scene in our mind’s eye, we spent some time with the Head Chef Yashbir (Yesh, to locals like us) in the kitchen as he prepared the meals for us. The concept was to eat a few different dishes, each prepared in varying levels of heat. We felt it important to taste meals that the restaurant would serve to regular customers, rather than give the chef carte blanche on the hottest ingredients he could find, so nothing in the video is ‘off the menu’. I could also burn the roof of your mouth off if I made a “curry” consisting of a chunk of chicken doused in chilli extract.

The Menu

Chicken Korma, served ‘mild’.

Lamb Rogan Josh, served ‘medium’.

Chicken Madras, served ‘hot’.

Lamb Vindaloo, served ‘Indian Hot’. Yes, when you run out of superlatives for heat, simply adding the prefix ‘Indian’ takes it up a notch…

I suppose my reaction in the video describes it better, but I suppose the run down was this: the first meal was more than acceptable on a heat scale, even for a wimp like me.  The second was hotter, but still fine, although I must admit that, rather than an instant burning sensation accompanying the first bite, it took a little while to register on the heat receptors. What followed was an unplanned splutter or two, but little sweating and zero tongue dousing. Here, the heat added to the flavour and I certainly could have sat at this level for a few more mouthfuls – the food was exceptional.

As we moved onto the hot, I began to get a bit concerned, as I was pretty sure that my nostrils were stinging from the fumes of the Chicken Madras. It was hot, seriously hot, and I hadn’t even put it in my mouth yet. Yesh mentioned that he had added some coconut milk to the dish, which would ultimately bring down the heat concern, but that we couldn’t rightly call the dish chicken madras without adding any coconut milk. Whatever yesh, I nearly lost my freakin tongue. Coconut milk my backside – it was basically like coating chicken pieces in lava and putting them in my face. It burnt my mouth and I began to begin the lizard rasping. Andy seemed to be fairing a bit better than me, but I could definitely note some tears and redness around his neck. And yes, the sweating had begun.

And then Yesh brought in the Vindaloo. Served Indian Hot. I’m pretty sure it came on a reinforced steel plate – the kind they use to transport Nuclear Waste. Then Yesh dropped the bomb “Oh no, I hardly ever eat this – I find it too spicy.” Great,

The meal of flame was an aggressive red and I am convinced I saw the fork wince when I plucked the first of the lamb from the little pot of lava. Really, I could sense the pain before I ate it. And then… chaos. Couging, spluttering, wheezing, laughing. There was definitely crying, but most of it was coming from the film crew who were finding my predicament increasingly amusing.

The meal was by far the hottest I’ve ever eaten and the pain was pretty bad. I was sweating profusely (no surprise there), and my face was red and blotchy. Unlike the medium and hot dishes, Indian hot burned from the moment it touched the lips and the heat in my mouth was constant, without remittance, occasionally slowed by the litre of milk I was pouring in my face.

The Verdict

At the end of the day, the pain was not unbearable and there are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, that eat food of this nature on a daily basis, but Indian hot is for Indian people, not the rest of us (well, not me anyway). The most educational aspect of the entire process was this – if you have just ingested something that is burning the living daylights out of your mouth milk is not the answer. Honey is. The minute Yesh saw me squirming in pain, he orderd a side serving of honey and a raita of yoghurt and cucumber. The yoghurt worked well, but the honey was a godsend. By far the best way to fight off the effects of a burning mouth…

Despite the searing heat of the food, the taste was delicious. In both the hot and the Indian hot plates, I could look past the spice and enjoy the food. While it was certainly uncomfortable as we got into the hotter dishes, the heat really wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought it would be. In fact, the whole incident has encouraged me to branch out into the exciting world of hot food. Maybe next time I’ll order the medium sauce with my chicken burger.