Help me Thai one on!

July 17, 2007 4:25 PM

How do you make sure your Thai cuisine has just the right heat?

I was introduced to Thai cuisine about 5 years ago, and I can't get enough of it. I travel alot, and so I get to sample different restaurants in different cities. Trouble is, restaurants vary in terms of what they consider spicy. I've tried various ways of describing the level of heat I like, but I haven't found the best way yet. In some restaurants "medium" or "4 on a scale of 1 to 5" means the food is downright bland. In other places it burns my tongue off. I've also tried saying, "I like it hotter than about 75% of clientele," but if you go to a place that's famous for its heat (or its "anglo-friendly" spice levels) this can be problematic as well. How do YOU ensure that your Thai (or Indian, or Cajun) food is the right level of spiciness when ordering in an unfamiliar restaurant? Are their cues I can use that might tip me off about how a particular establishment brings on the heat?

posted by Crotalus to food & drink (17 comments total)

Ask for it how the chef recommends? It always seemed strange to me to ask for a level of hotness. Presumably, the kitchen has a sense of an ideal for how a particular dish should be prepared -- that's how *I* would like mine.
posted by TonyRobots at 4:29 PM on July 17, 2007

Just spice it yourself. Thai food uses red pepper flakes for its heat (right, madman? I think?), and lots of Thai places have those out on the table. If they don't, I'm sure you could ask.
posted by rossination at 4:38 PM on July 17, 2007

(I am referring to madman, the mefite who might know a thing or two about Thai food).
posted by rossination at 4:40 PM on July 17, 2007

A good rule of thumb (in the US anyway) is to just ask for "light" and also ask for the spice caddy. Both Thai and Indian restaurants usually have them. Then you can spice it up as much as you wish. Asking for "the hottest you got!" is pretty much a standing invitation for the chef to try and hurt you. You dont want that. If you have access to the chef, by all means ask for his suggestion on the dish in question. In larger restaurants, that is probably not too likely.

A more esoteric view might be to try and educate yourself as to what spices/peppers etc different cuisines use and learn to recognize them. Thai food traditionally use the prik ke nu, which are some darn hot peppers, but very flavorful. However, many asian retaurants (of any variety) will use other peppers and spices because they are more easily available. You can search these out easily on your own.
posted by elendil71 at 4:42 PM on July 17, 2007

It depends on where the place is.

For me in the US, I check the surroundings. If the restaurant is in an area lacking ethnicities known for the zing in their food: Southeast Asians, Indians, Mexicans, and South Americans - the level of spiciness will generally be lower. This, I suppose, is to cater to the more sensitive tongue of those unfamiliar to spice. These are the areas where "mild salsa" (utterly spiceless to spice lovers) still packs a punch. (I thought this was bunk and the stuff of legend, until I discovered one of my friends really couldn't take mild salsa. Too hot, she said.)

And if the area is more ethnically diverse: there, Tabasco leans more towards "sour" than "spicy". A midrange "3" would probably be like Sriracha. 4 and 5 will usually be the kind that makes you gasp for breath. (Which is what some freaks such as myself actually aim for.)
posted by Xere at 4:43 PM on July 17, 2007

I don't think this is possible. I always order my Thai food "Thai hot" and there is considerable variation between restaurants, and even between the same dish at the same restaurant on different days. There are so many variables at play. You might have a different chef that day, or the chiles might be hotter or cooler than they expected, or your cup of soup might have randomly gotten more chile oil than the last cup.
posted by TungstenChef at 4:46 PM on July 17, 2007

Just spice it yourself. Thai food uses red pepper flakes for its heat (right, madman? I think?), and lots of Thai places have those out on the table. If they don't, I'm sure you could ask.

I'll second this, a lot of Thai places will give you a "chile tray" if you ask. Some of them have as many as 4 or 5 condiments, it can be fun to customize your with them.
posted by TungstenChef at 4:48 PM on July 17, 2007

...customize your food with them.
posted by TungstenChef at 4:49 PM on July 17, 2007

I'm going to add to the choir here and say you should ask for some sauce to add on your own. Lots of Thai places by default will give you some of their house hot sauce, and if you've never tried it, you're in for a treat. It's classic Thai: fresh chillies, lime juice and fish sauce.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 5:24 PM on July 17, 2007

[e d] is right. It's not dry red chile flakes you want, it's the Thai condiments that you can find at any respectable restaurant. Fresh hot peppers in some kind of pickly liquid are great for adjusting the heat of most dishes. Other good condiments that you may encounter (or be able to request from the kitchen) include spicy pickled garlic and crushed moist peppers (sambal oelek).

Aside from adjusting the heat using the appropriate condiments, there's no way you can reliably get the proper heat level out of the kitchen, due to the variations between cooks and the issues relating to the ethnicity of the eater and the server.
posted by rxrfrx at 5:30 PM on July 17, 2007

Yeah, I think this is hard. The best I've ever been able to figure out is to do a back-and-forth conversation with the waiter, who may be smug, helpful, or patronizing.

I remember once coming back to Eagle Rock, CA, after a few years in Boston, and sort of glibly insisting that the coconut chicken soup be "hot." The guy looked at me, alarmed. "Hot," I said. "Hot and spicy, please!" I'd been living in Boston and you can't get spicy food there; I had recalibrated my soup-ordering to fit the Boston framework.

The guy nodded, still looking skeptical. When the soup came out it contained a bunch of short, yellow, waxy peppers that had been split open to release their seeds into the soup - I'd never seen peppers like this in Thai cuisine before. One spoonful was enough - I couldn't eat it. So the moral of that story is it pays to know where you are, which I guess you already know. I'll shut up now.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:47 PM on July 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thai food is NOT, as a rule, spiced by red pepper flakes, or by chili paste, at least not in Thailand. It is, rather, spiced by fresh chilis...the bulk of the heat in most Thai dishes comes from these fresh chilis. Many Thai restaurants serve peppered vinegar or chili flakes on the side, but this adds heat of a different character. More specifically, Thai food is spiced by (and this is a bit of an oversimplification, because dried chilis do play a role) three different types of chilis.

1) Small and extremely hot bird's eye chilis (prik kii noo)
2) Medium (prik chee faa), also medium in spice.
3) Long, bigger chilis (prik num), that are barely spicey at all.

My experience in Thailand, and in cooking school in Thailand specifically, was that Thais characterize the spiciness of many types of dishes (particularly the spicy salads---which is where the real heat of Thai cooking resides), by the number of bird's eye chilis used in the preparation of the dish. For example, a serving of real "Thai hot," Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam) or Glass Noodle Salad (Yam Wun Sen) which you should honestly avoid because it will kill you, contains 9 small chilis. I like mine with 5 (odd number only, please).

I have found this a somewhat effective way of communicating my desired level of spice for many dishes in authentic Thai restaurants.

Here's a scale, based on number of small (prik kii noo) chilis in a dish for a few people:

3-Spicy
5-Very, very spicy
7-Uncomfortably spicy
9-Spicy to a Thai

I know this might sound crazy, but it's how I was taught and it seems to work in some restaurants.

If you're going to ask for anything on the side to add spice, the best thing would be to ask for a bowl of fresh chopped chilis.
posted by kosem at 8:56 PM on July 17, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Red pepper flakes don't hurt anything, though... as one who loves to feel her mucous membranes burned on a regular basis, I've been known to carry a bottle in my purse when eating out.

I had this terrible encounter once at a Chinese restaurant where I ordered ma po tofu... which is supposed to be fairly well-spiced. Instead, it was nasty salty bland, and it took three tries to convince the kitchen that this little white girl COULD handle the heat.
posted by rhoticity at 9:29 PM on July 17, 2007

Sorry I'm late to this question. Haven't checked AskMe for a few days thanks to work.

kosem is pretty much on the money. rossination, red pepper flakes are usually offered separately to add bite to the served food, but not used that much while cooking the dish itself.

The answer to your question, unfortunately, is that there is no set standard from one chef to the other. One person's "bloody hot" is another person's "hmmm... nice bite". And... another problem is that even if you specify "hot" in a restaurant, the chef might consider it his duty to shield you from the true spiciness and give you a milder version, you being the Westerner who (in his mind) probably can't handle the heat. If a Thai guest asked for "hot", he might get a completely different version.

My aunt, who was visiting her son in Vancouver, WA, told me that the Thai food she had in USA was completely bland, even when she asked for it hot.

(Anecdote: I once had a foreign guest look at my menu where my "drunken noodles" were described as seasoned with "a fiery mix of chillies, garlic, and basil" and was marked with two chillies to indicate "really hot". She ordered it anyway, and then complained that it was too hot. I felt like hitting her on the head with my wok.)

Ask your Thai restaurant for some "prik nam pla" (chillies in fish sauce) which is a nice way to spice up your dish. It might also mark you as someone who knows a bit about the cuisine. Or try to find the owner and say you want it "pet pet" for "spicy". (I'm not a Thai language expert; just know some of the food terms.)
posted by madman at 9:53 PM on July 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm sure it's not the case, but my experience with American friends is they have a low spice tolerance. Perhaps you need to simply roll with the punches, and take it as it comes.
posted by oxford blue at 10:04 PM on July 17, 2007

Seconding kosem and madman -- when I lived in Lao, you ordered som tam from the neighbourhood stall by number of chilis. I was not shocked when I learned the hottest I could tolerate had half the number of chilis as the 'spicy' setting favoured by other folks in the neighbourhood.
posted by docgonzo at 10:22 PM on July 17, 2007

A 9 chilli dish, in my opinion, crosses the boundary of "cuisine" and lands firmly in masochism territory. 5 is what I would recommend if you want "balance" in your food while still keeping it "hot".

(Gratuitous food porn link: The aforementioned Drunken Noodles.)
posted by madman at 12:48 AM on July 18, 2007