The Vindaloo - When too much is just enough
Part One: Restaurants
During the eighties and early nineties, likely driven my initial exposure, I became fixated on finding the hottest vindaloo imaginable. Each time I would try a new restaurant, I would begin by ordering lamb or chicken vindaloo and urge the waiter to have the chef “make it very hot.” This usually meant the heat would be turned up a few notches with a bit of extra chili. Although the resulting dish would occasionally have some “authority,” I often walked away thinking “is that it?” That’s not to say that there were not a few highlights along the way.
Central Square’s Oh Calcutta was probably the first restaurant to serve me a vindaloo that approached the heat I was imagining. I remember a vindaloo that awakened my taste buds and raised my eyebrows with a higher than normal dose of chili, amplified by vinegar. This was the way forward, I realized. But it was initially elusive, for other local restaurants seemed to be more careful when it came to chilis. Eventually a small restaurant named Mother India in Waltham attracted my attention.
I subjected the restaurant to the vindaloo test, and while they initially created a pretty flavorful version, it took until my second order before they turned up the heat. They were the first restaurant to score acceptably on my test. In the ensuing years, I would learn quite a bit more about vindaloo, and Mother India’s version would be eclipsed by others, eventually including a fiery one of my own creation.
A few decades later, I was still chasing the heat. On my second visit to Ghazal, a short-lived restaurant in Jamaica Plain, I put them to the vindaloo test. This time, I was in the midst of a year-long survey of local Indian restaurants, where I was rating and commenting about dinner at each eatery. After recovering the survey results from the archives I found my comments about my dinner at Ghazal. My initial experience at the restaurant had been positive. Unfortunately, after this diner, I had some discouraging thoughts about their vindaloo:
“OK, this wasn’t bad, but a few things here. First, they have a different recipe for Vindaloo than most, and it seems like they left the garlic and vinegar on the side. Second, and more importantly, while they offer several different spice levels (including “Indian Hot”) on the menu, they did not seem to pay attention to this in the kitchen. I asked for a blazing hot dish, and yet there was no perceptual change in heat. The lamb and potatoes, however were cooked quite well. Other spices were a bit subdued for my taste.”
Oof! What did I really think?
Striking Gold
Back in the early days, I was often frustrated with many resturants’ concept of what was “hot.” Therefore, I became more insistent when ordering, and finally, there were a few occasions where I was rewarded. One night the band was out for dinner at Kebab-N-Kurry in Boston, and the waiter took my pleading at face value and called my bluff. I got my extra hot vindaloo and I ate every last bit of it!
It was the hottest thing I had ever eaten to that point but at the same time, it was also supremely flavorful. About halfway through my serving, the vindaloo began to rage against the sides of my tongue. Each bite became sharper and hotter than the last — the chilis and vinegar seemingly had declared war on my mouth. Drinking water was no use. I had not yet learned that you are supposed to eat rice or yogurt to counteract an overdose of chilis. No matter. My mouth was on fire, but I loved it! This is what I had been looking for.
As previously recounted, India Restaurant, in Somerville also upped the heat for me one night. Alas, their version seemed to be only about the chili which threw the flavor of the dish out of whack.
It is probably a good thing that neither restaurant had any ghost peppers on hand at the time, because even with all my bravado, I would not have been quite ready for them yet. Bhut Jolokia, also known as ghost peppers, are grown in the northeastern part of India, and were for many years considered one of the hottest chilis in the world.
Interestingly, it was the fierce ghost pepper that finally “cured” me and my fixation for extra-hot food. After conquering East Coast Grill’s Pasta from Hell, which included a liberal dosage of ghost peppers, I was finally ready to back down a bit. As an aside, East Coast Grill included vindaloo on one of their Hell Night menus, and while it was flavorful, it seemed oddly devoid of firepower next to some of the other dishes.
As I would learn much later on, most Indian food is not necessarily supposed to be hot — especially not as hot as my quest for a five-alarm vindaloo. Are there hot dishes? Certainly! But the key to most Indian food is in the balance of spices and flavors. The variety of spices, including chili, does not necessarily make it hot. I suppose, compared to what chain restaurants in the United States might call hot, yeah it’s hot. Or spicy as some might say.
The Challenge
However, even though I was starting to back off the chilis ever so slightly, I wasn’t quite done yet. On Monday, October 29, 2015 my brother met me at my office after work. After a quick tour of our office, which included introducing him to Arnie, our beer vending machine, we headed to to Roslindale a few miles south of Downtown Boston.
Shanti, a restaurant with locations in Roslindale and Dorchester at the time, was holding an event named The Xtreme Vindaloo Challenge. I remembered reading about a British restaurant hosting similar events for their flaming-hot dish named Phall; perhaps that’s where Shanti got the idea. The challenge for us was: “if the diner could eat the entire portion of Xtreme Vindaloo, he or she would receive a certificate of accomplishment, and a free dinner at a later date.” By then, having polished off the Pasta From Hell a few times, I was pretty confident I was up to the task. And yeah, it was quite hot, maybe even as hot as the Kebab-N-Kurry version. But nothing compared to the blistering Pasta from Hell, so two servings of Xtreme Vindaloo were conquered and my brother and I each received certificates of completion. If I remember correctly, our photos were also taken to post on their website (or wall).
If it appears that I was obsessed about eating a scorching vindaloo in restaurants, it was equally matched by my stubborn determination to replicate the experience at home. But bringing the heat in my cooking to a level that I could accept took my khojana to a whole new level. And that took a lot of time.