Man, that doesn't sound pleasant at all. Like nailing your tongue to the table. I think great dishes have a balance of flavors and textures, not just burn. But that's just my taste buds; yours may differ.

A lot of the ethnic places like Trinidadian, Thai, and Indian will tone down the heat for white people until you become a regular and they understand you really do want it all the way spicy.

Vindaloo curry is usually the spiciest at an Indian restaurant.

Spicy does not mean a dish has mass pepper, as in Scotch Bonnet. Spice refers to ingredients like cardamom, pimento, fenugreek, coriander. Which are different than herbs, but I digress....
So the Trinidadian Jerk was spicy and no wonder that guy, rightly so, saw you as daft. You are.
You want hot, go for hot. Plus, you obviously have not met 'The Man' at Dixies.

Does Dixie's BBQ still challenge people to 'meet the man' since Mr. Porter has passed? If they still have that volcanic stuff available, the author might want to go across the bridge and check 'em out.

If you want heat and yum. Thai Siam on 15th makes a red curry beef, that if ordered 4 stars (they will want to verify you really want it that hot) will give you the involuntary eye watering you mention. They only go to 4 stars and don't do the "farang" American style most other places do.

water does NOT quench heat. milk does. yogurt does. ice cream does. sweet indian chai does. water, even ice water, doesn't..

Very well written article. Enjoyed the read.

Get the #13. It's not the Spiciest, maybe. But you will Tear up. And I dare you to slurp the Soup. Even with a spoon. I dare ya. Triple Dog dare Ya!

Uh, get the #13 at Szechuan Noodle Bowl in the ID, on 8th ave.

Find a Vietnamese restaurant run by people from the central area of VN, ask for the tiny red Vietnamese peppers.

You should try H Mart's 3x spicy Champon (Seafood Noodle Soup).

come on out to issaquah and try the noodle boat. they'll set you right.

Thai Tom will take it up to 20 stars once they know you. My pepperhead friends also recommend 7 Stars Pepper Szechuan on Jackson St. None of them recommend The Man at Dixies, it's all heat, no flavor. Might as well just put pepper spray on your food.

Spiced in Bellevue seems to have a mixed opinion as to quality, but not in terms of the heat available.

Quadruple death wings at Charlie's on Broadway

The problem isn't the restaurant, it is in your ordering. You have to know the code. At Indian and Thai establishments, the code is "Make it as hot as you would make it for your own family.". Even then, you won't get it that hot until they know you, but it will get you out of the "pedestrian star" system at the very least.

Might I refer the author and readers to the following Slog archive and comment thread...
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

By far the hottest dish I've ever had in the Seattle area was (inexplicably) at the Red dragon casino on Aurora and 220th (Mount Lake Terrace). Their "No shit spicy wings" are really and truly no shit spicy. Anyone up for a serious spice challenge who happens to be in the lovely Aurora area should try them.

The spice at Thai Tom can also be very inconsistent. I go there pretty regularly, and I always order a five-star dish. Sometimes it's legit spicy, sometimes it's much more tame. There are variations from cook to cook (George, the head cook, is consistently the spiciest), but I also think that sometimes the peppers they get are inconsistently hot: a rounded spoonful one day does not equal a rounded spoonful another. Still, as Thai in Seattle goes, it's among the spiciest. Five-star most places--which is a joke--is about two-star at Tom.

1. The most diverse zip code in America is in Seattle. When people say Seattle is "not diverse", they mean there aren't a lot of African-Americans here.
2. Some of us physically cannot eat chilies like that - we're not wimps, we just don't like gastric emergencies that last 3 days.

You were looking for hot food, and you didn't try kitfo? FAIL. Come to the CD for some Ethiopian food before you consider your experiment complete.

Thai Tom is one of the few places i can get food spicy enough; but to do so, I had to become a regular there, and order 10 to 20 stars. Even then, it's still inconsistent; but most days they do it sufficiently burninating. And they make the best Panang curry in the state.

7 Stars Peppers Sichuan restaurant is very good. Not insanely hot, but a decent burn; and the food is excellent, some of the best Sichuan food in the city.

Dixie's is crap. "The Man" is hot, but that's all it is. Sorry, but I like something to taste good as well as being insanely hot; and "The Man" doesn't. Worse, it has that metallic taste that comes from using capsaicin extracts instead of actual peppers. If I order something hot, I want the heat to come from actual peppers that I can taste; I don't want it to taste like a can of cheap pepper spray.

I find I always have to say I'm from Texas before they give a real spicy dish around here. That almost always works.

@6 is correct- rookie mistake, water lets your tongue enjoy more spice

I have lived and traveled in Asia for a decade now and every time I come to Seattle to visit all the Thai restaurants 'whitey the food down' no matter how much I tell them I can handle the heat. I stopped even trying.

I agree that it depends on who's doing the cooking at Thai Tom. When "Tom" was cooking there, I could not order anything hotter than 2 stars, or I would regret it in the morning. And, I can generally take a lot of heat! Though not Seattle, I also recommend Tacoma Szechuan for some of the most authentic "numbing hot" Sichuan food in the whole Pacific Northwest. Their Spicy Beef Noodle soup (order the hand-shaven noodles!) is one of my favorite dishes anywhere. I usually order 2-3 stars, but the one time I ordered 5-stars, the waitress looked at me askance as if to ask "Are you serious?..." That hot or less hot, this noodle soup is worth the trip to South Tacoma Way...

@23, right on. i had some food at mesob once that was the hottest damn thing i've ever eaten. i think they might have been fucking with me, it was so hot. but it was damn good.

anyone ever had a HOT hatch green chile? that's a whole 'nuther level of hotness.

Ice water adds to the inflammation. Capsaicin is a fat based molecule. When one drinks milk, the fat in the milk helps wash the oily molecules off. One only has so many Capsaicin receptors in the mouth. Once they are all bonded, the hotness isn't as hot. Capsaicin stays bonded for 3 to 5 days. If you eat more capsaicin in that time frame, it will have no where to bond. Next time wait a week for a better comparison.
That said the M 80 at the long gone Super Bowl on 65th was the best.