First off I just wanna say that I love your show. You guys are great.
I've been wondering... why do Thai restaurants give you the option of 1-5 hot when you order a curry dish? Why don't they just offer "mild, medium or hot" like the green Chile you buy here in New Mexico, and make it a whole lot easier for us to order?
It's so confusing with so many choices.
Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Keep It Simple Thai restaurants
Dear KISTR:
The reason Thai restaurants have a 5-point heat index as compared to the 3-point for the New Mexico Chile is because I don't really know why.
But you should be thankful that most Thai restaurants still use the 1-5 scale.
After perusing the menu, I opted for my usual “Curry With Assorted Animal”, and after ordering, the waitress asks me “How hot?” Since I'm a fan of hot foods, and since I'm familiar with the usual 1-5 heat scale choice thing, I say “Hot”, thinking that she'll just naturally translate that into a "5 hot".
And this is where it goes south.
She looks at me and asks “10?”
I say “What?”
She says “10 hot?”
I say “On a scale of what?”
She says “20”.
I say, “Are you kidding me?”
She says “No I no kid.”
I say “Seriously? 1 to 20?”
She says “Yes 1 to 20”
I stare blankly at the Chinese Zodiac paper place mat in front of me, trying to get my head around all of this.
I start contemplating the subtle differences between a 7 and an 8 hot. Are there any? Is there a magic number of hotness after which all following levels of hotness are too hot?
After that, does it begin to venture into some sort of equation requiring an abacus, where a 12 hot is somehow exponentially hotter than an 11 hot? Does 1 hot have any hotness at all, and is it pretty close to 2 hot? Or does 2 hot make a quantitative leap into the “kind of hot” arena, but noticeably less hot than say a 3 hot or a 4 hot which may or may not be substantially less hot than a 5 or 6 hot? Then I realize that this whole time I thought I was born in the Year of the Rat.
At this point I start wishing that the place mat was something I could use- like a Thai curry heat scale index guideline. It would probably read something like this:
 |
| A little help would help |
We had a gig to get to, and I figured that since I'm not afraid of a little spice, I'd go upper mid-range and order the 15 hot.
“No problem," she says, "beef, chicken or shrimp?”
“How fresh is the shrimp?" I asked her,
"On a scale of 1-50.”
She laughed, collected our menus and mumbled something in Thai as she walked away.
Now I don't know if the 16 hot would have been noticeably hotter than my 15 hot, or the 14 noticeably less hot, but I do know that the shrimp were definitely no more than a 22 fresh. So take my advice. When ordering Thai in a restaurant with Chinese placemats, stick with the beef.
-Vanilla Pop
Still a solid 20 on the awesome scale.
2 comments :
I did not find a single Thai restaurant in Thailand that used any form of heat index and I was repeatedly let down by the lack of spicy. I think they thought I was one of those euro-puss tourists that only enjoys bland food. I even started ordering "Thai spicy" but that also was not enjoyably hot. Then, at the end of my journey I found the right phrase (note that I was in the far south of Thailand), when I ordered my Jungle Curry "Malaysian hot" I got a dish that had me sweating and in tears. 20 may only be available upon Malaysian spicy request.....
-J
If only they served ice cream to counteract the meal, and you could order it on a -20 to -1 scale. (Sigh)
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