Hot Food

I’ve waxed poetic about hot food before here. It is one of my passions. But I have to admit certain biases. I am a loyalist to the hot cuisines of Thailand and India. If this makes me a snob, so be it, but the Thai and the Indians have done a hell of a job figuring out blazing hot food. You’ll excuse me if I don’t want to eat a chicken wing covered in Blazing/Burning/Hiroshima sauce.

But there I was earlier this week, staring at a menu warning me away from Jamaican Jerk Chicken. “This is AUTHENTIC and very hot!” It read, which might as well be a parent telling a teenager not to go out with that girl because she’s bad news. What else is he going to do? I ordered it as hot as they would make it, giving my standards spiel, “Please, as hot as you’re willing to make it. I will not send it back. I promise.”

Lo and behold, I get a delicious meal that is unbelievably hot by my standards, so hot that it gives me the giggles, the mark of a truly excellent experience. Read the post linked to above for a brief description of the giggles, but the short of it is that truly hot food makes me giggle.

The restaurant, if you’re wondering, was Solera. It is in Morgantown, West Virginia, my home. And the food appears to be excellent. God only knows if it will actually survive. My town has a strange history of brilliant eateries that flame out within a couple of years. But here’s hoping.