An interesting item on the menu -- from Yahoo/AFP:
London restaurant blast at world's hottest curry title
A London restaurant was serving up Thursday what it hopes will be confirmed as the world's hottest curry, with even the chef admitting it is "too extreme" to keep on the menu.
Vivek Singh at The Cinnamon Club grabbed some of the hottest chilli peppers known to man to create the Bollywood Burner, a lamb-based dish with a fierce kick.
The curry is so hot that diners are asked to sign a disclaimer confirming they are aware of the risks involved before daring to eat it.
The Bollywood Burner is being submitted to Guinness World Records for verification of its status as the planet's hottest curry. The verdict should be announced within three weeks.
Student Toby Steele, 19, from Brighton on the southern English coast, was the first to taste the Bollywood Burner.
"I'm usually a korma man and I suspect this is the hottest thing I've ever tasted," he said.
"It was nice actually, you could really taste the spices.
"The initial taste isn't that hot but now, a couple of minutes later, I feel a bit floaty and light-headed."
The dish, inspired by cuisine from Hyderabad in southern India, includes the Naga and its seeds -- confirmed by Guinness World Records as the hottest chilli pepper in the world.
On the Scoville scale of piquancy, the Naga scores 855,000 -- more than 100 times hotter than the jalapeno, which measures 8,000 on the scale.
Reminds me of a meal I once had in Hong Kong. I found a restaurant that I really liked and ate there quite a few times -- got so I was recognized by the staff. It took a few times for them to realize that I liked my hot foods hot. My last day in H.K., I told them that I was heading back to the US -- they said that they were sorry to see me go and that the chef would do a special dish for me. My meal came out with a small plate of shrimp. I had not ordered shrimp so I assumed this was the special dish. Good lord -- it was the hottest thing I have to this day ever tasted! The sauce was carmine red in color and each mouthful was like a blast furnace. It was really delicious and it was fun in that every few minutes, a face would pop into the window of the doors leading into the kitchen -- I can imagine the conversation back there: Yep -- that crazy guailo is still eating it.
