Thai Food Heat Level

fmdog44

fmdog44

Well-known Member
Location
Houston, Texas
If you eat at Thai restaurants you are asked what spice or heat level you prefer. Usually the scale ranges from 1 to 10. I order 3 but tried 5 once and I will never do that again. I can't imagine eating a level 10.
 

Well....we did try a sizzling seafood platter at one Thai place that probably went to 8 on a scale of 1-10.

We love hot food, altho DH can take more of it than I can. But this was almost too hot for him! The restaurant runs an in-house competition: if you can finish the dish by yourself in 30 minutes, they will put your photo up on their "Wall of Flame Fame"!

The spicing on the dish is very complex. Beyond the heat, you can taste really wonderful spice and herb flavors.

We've had Mexican food that's almost as hot, but I think they were taking pity on us and making it less hot than they liked to do, because it was so obvious we really didn't belong there. It's actually not far from where we live, but few Asians or Caucasians live in that neighborhood. We're Asian, and the menu was entirely in Spanish, LOL.

Fortunately one waitress spoke English, and I knew a few food items in Spanish so we could figure out what to order. To this day my DH swoons in memory of their shrimp and sea bass aguachile, which was really sensational.
 
We've only ordered Panang Shrimp for a Thai place by us, it's very good and not that hot. They never asked about heat level preference, if I had to judge, the level for the Panang might be a 5.
 

Just tonight I cooked up a package of Noodles complete with packaged spices. You could select. I added all of them. It was spicy but tasty.

But I did have a beer with them. That's all I had. I was satisfied.

The price of the noodle package? 59 cents. I was going to add chicken or whatever but I just was o.k. with the noodles.
 
I go for the '10'. I don't know what it is, but I have never had an issue with 'heat'. I feel it somewhat, while someone next to me is turning green. I've read that some people simply lack the 'capsaicin receptors' that line your mouth. I would guess I'm one of those people. I have never found Thai food to be that hot, even the Jungle Curry that I like. I find Indian chili's to be hotter.
 

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