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some foods, like cajun food, are at their best with a strong spice heavy flavor profile - but that profile is in balance and not necessarily hot
i also agree that asian foods tend to be the hottest most consistently
I love hot foods and love the use of peppers in NM - TX has some really good options as well.
I'm not sure what "authentic" Mexican food is ....... a lot of authentic Mexican food is far from spicy and even further from hot ........ there are quite a few that have noticable spice, but are not hot at all .... the different types of mole in Oaxaca help demonstate this - all of them are very complex, have a lot of spice detail - but can range from sweet to hot (Similar to curry - typically spicy, but not always hot) .... Mexico is a big country with many regions, traditions, etc ... you'll not find a uniformed profile that is easy to export in one sum
Typically I agree with the I-10 suggestion - you'll find plenty of options from LA (the state abbreviation) to LA (the city abbreviation) that will offer a pretty diverse spice punch
Salvadoran food is definately not and niether is Guatemalan.
Nope and although I do love spicy food - I absolutely love food from this region .... I like a lot of the no meat Papusas like Loroco Flower with cheese or squash with cheese .... local place also has one that has pork, cheese & beans .... shrimp with toasted garlic and onion chicken are all good
I like the responses so far and I agree with them. The entire belt from the Gulf Coast, then extending through the Southwest to Southern California is where I was thinking too. Basically New Orleans to Los Angeles and everything in between + Miami.
To those of you saying Central American food isn't typically spiced out have you ever tried Panamanian Patacones before? Or ever tried any of their spicy + hot sauces? Yes typically Panamanian food is known for being less spicy than several of it's South American counterparts (even Central American) and it's rarer to find spice in their dishes but what they do good, they do phenomenal with it.
Also for South American, I also disagree. Peruvian has definitely got to be up there (probably the spiciest of all Latin Americans), the hot/Aji peppers from Peru are some of the spiciest things you could ever try despite their status of being illegal in much of the United States you can still find them in Florida, Texas, and California. In my personal opinion and this is coming from someone born in Southeast Asia with Asian Indian ancestry.
Another thing I want to add is barbeque, around central Texas is pretty great especially in Lockhart (Austin exurb). Very hot and given certain sauces, very spicy.
I think Malaysian is being underrated here, easily the spiciest of the foods I've had (with Thai being second) and it's quite a delicacy in my hometown Singapore. I also forgot about Mongolian, they spice up their gravy and sauces.
Someone also brought up if I mean hot or spicy, I mean both but more specifically on the spice side with hot being a distant second. Basically spiced out OR hot foods.
Last edited by Trafalgar Law; 03-05-2013 at 05:40 PM..
I think Malaysian is being underrated here, easily the spiciest of the foods I've had (with Thai being second) and it's quite a delicacy in my hometown Singapore. I also forgot about Mongolian, they spice up their gravy and sauces.
Malaysian food is great! My girlfriend is from there, but not all the food is spicy. Some is and some isn't. She can NOT handle spicy food, believe me. She has no trouble enjoying her food though. Definitely one of the world's most underrated cuisines.
As far as other cuisines go, I think it's a natural tendency for people in the US to rate Mexican/Hispanic food as real spicy, but people are forgetting that a lot of Asian food is spicy. Indian, Pakistani, Thai, Indonesian/Malaysian, Korean, certain types of Chinese like Sichuan are all just as spicy as the spicy Mexican/Hispanic cuisines and sometimes spicier. I can handle spicy food..I have no problem eating Habeneros but I have had a handful of Thai dishes at restaurants here alone that made me wish I was eating a Habenero instead.
As you have said you have to expand your horizons. That is why I mentioned places like NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago. Not only do they all have the authentic Mexican/Hispanic cuisine you'll find in the southern states (especially NYC and Chicago...some people would be shocked at how many Mexicans/Hispanic people live in both of these cities/areas), but they also have a plethora of Asian foods that are spicy that might not be as prevalent in say San Antonio, El Paso, etc.
Malaysian food is great! My girlfriend is from there, but not all the food is spicy. Some is and some isn't. She can NOT handle spicy food, believe me. She has no trouble enjoying her food though. Definitely one of the world's most underrated cuisines.
As far as other cuisines go, I think it's a natural tendency for people in the US to rate Mexican/Hispanic food as real spicy, but people are forgetting that a lot of Asian food is spicy. Indian, Pakistani, Thai, Indonesian/Malaysian, Korean, certain types of Chinese like Sichuan are all just as spicy as the spicy Mexican/Hispanic cuisines and sometimes spicier.
As you have said you have to expand your horizons. That is why I mentioned places like NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago. Not only do they all have the authentic Mexican/Hispanic cuisine you'll find in the southern states (especially NYC and Chicago), but they also have a plethora of Asian foods that are spicy that might not be as prevalent in say San Antonio, El Paso, etc.
Yeahhh I would agree with everything you're saying. Yeahh I agree getting either hot or spicy food in Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC, or New York shouldn't be an issue at all (in general for cities of their caliber, no food should be an issue finding), the Spanish Belt (real geographic area in the US, haha) is exceptional from California to Texas to Florida with Louisiana, Arizona, and New Mexico in between.
I think it's fair to say there's some spiced out food coming from all over the world, with somewhat of a notable exception being much of western Europe and parts of southern Euope, where food is typically more on the mild and dry side.
While not as much spicy as it is hot, middle eastern food is very hot. I've been accustomed to ordering steaming kabobs before and it's always been a delight, a lot of the food can also range on the mild side (on the hot or spicy radar) along the Mediterranean like falafel, hummus, and so on but any sort of kabob, lamb, chicken, any sort of meat in general is going to be very hot and steamy for the first 15 minutes at a good middle eastern/Mediterranean restaurant.
Also, I think the Mongolian stir fry craze is swamping all over America, in my last few months of living in Austin or Houston I've seen those restaurants go into expansion mode like nuts, similarly to my "American" hometown Chicago and also catching on like wildfire here in the DMV. Very hot gravy and sauces, goes well with the preparation of stir fry, just integrates the food so nice.
Surprisingly however, Boston is one that's more of a niche food town. Specialty in several things, with a diverse array and collection of foods but to a lesser extent, and the spicy foods not as noticeable.
wherever you have lots of sichuan, korean, thai, indian, pakistani, west african, mexican.
cajun and some of the others to me doesn't really qualify on the spicy scale, and if it is, it's very low on it.
can't think of many vietnamese dishes for instance that are very spicy. pretty much nothing from europe is spicy.
cuban puerto rican, a no go.
what brazilian foods are spicy? must have missed those. I don't really consider any south american foods that spicy.
i am also a spicy food nut. Even if I am getting chicken wings i will get the hottest tihng on the menu like nuclear/ xxx hot, whatever.
one of my favorite dishes is sichuan beef in hot pot/hot oil
foodspotting
real mexican cuisine tends to have some extremely hot sauces on the side.
wherever you have lots of sichuan, korean, thai, indian, pakistani, west african, mexican.
cajun and some of the others to me doesn't really qualify on the spicy scale, and if it is, it's very low on it.
can't think of many vietnamese dishes for instance that are very spicy. pretty much nothing from europe is spicy.
cuban puerto rican, a no go.
what brazilian foods are spicy? must have missed those. I don't really consider any south american foods that spicy.
i am also a spicy food nut. Even if I am getting chicken wings i will get the hottest tihng on the menu like nuclear/ xxx hot, whatever.
one of my favorite dishes is sichuan beef in hot pot/hot oil
foodspotting
real mexican cuisine tends to have some extremely hot sauces on the side.
What about Peruvian? It is very spicy, I wouldn't classify it any less than Southeast Asian foods on that.
Brazilian is hot more than it is spicy. Order anything that's non-vegetarian and it's steaming.
People think I'm joking but I'm pretty serious when I tell every restaurant to make my food as spiced out as the FDA will allow them administer in their restaurant to the max. Usually if they treat it as a joke, which they did in my recent trip to Seattle at the Thai joints here, I complain.
I agree with you, I usually order the hottest and most sweltering stuff on the menu. I just like hot things in general, whether it's food, climate, water (beaches), temperature indoors, whatever. I haven't had benign or mild stuff to eat in several months now, since I moved and if I do it's very rare.
West African and Sri Lankan cuisines are both incredibly spicy. Outside of Sri Lanka itself, I know Toronto, NYC and London all have large Sri Lankan populations and the smaller population in Singapore and Malaysia has been historically influential. There are pretty large West African populations in NYC and DC.
Central American food is not really spicy. Salvadoran food is definately not and niether is Guatemalan.
The most spicy food in that part of the world comes from Northern and North Central Mexico.
Interesting - I didn't realize that Central American wasn't considered as spicy.
I'm relatively inexperienced with it, only had Peruvian once and Nicaraguan. Peruvian was seafood and not very spicy and the Nicaraguan was spicy.
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