There was a place on Venice beach called Rose’s Thai Window which had the best pad Thai. You could get it mild, medium, spicy, or ‘Rose spicy’, which is how she made it for herself. Whenever we tried to order it Rose spicy, she would flat out tell us no. On the last day the place was open, before she moved back to Thailand, she finally made it for us. I lasted literally 2 bites before I couldn’t taste anything anymore, except pain.
Pro tip: don’t ever tell a Thai cook their food isn’t spicy enough. They take their spice seriously, they take pride in it, and they like to dig it in a little if you ask for it spicier.
Based on my experience you can ask for Thai spicy. It also works in Indian restaurants if you ask for Indian spicy. So far I have gotten what I asked for.
My latest experience in my local Indian restaurant resulted in the waiter to double check if we understood what we asked for. Once we got our food he was eyeing us the whole time to see if we would survive haha
I went to an Indian place once and asked the waiter to make my food spicy. It was kinda medium-spicy, and when the waiter asked if it was spicy enough, I–stupid white boy I am–said no. He took the dish back to the kitchen. He returned a little later with the chef. They both watched me take a bite and regret my decision. Through the tears, I told them the Spice was just right. They laughed.
From the restaurant’s perspective I can kind of understand. They don’t want to serve you a meal that they suspect you won’t be able to eat because it’s a bad look for their business. And if you complain, being too spicy is also way harder to rectify than being not spicy enough so they play it safe initially. Though it obviously sucks if you’re specifically looking for spicy food.
This is why I advocate for chili oil, white pepper, and other condiments at the table or provided on request at Chinese restaurants. As a Chinese person who likes to fine tune the spice level of my food or change the spice level part way through. It also basically means the kitchen doesn’t really have to worry about if something is too mild in the same way they don’t have to worry if it’s not salty enough.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on thai food, so I can’t speak to the “traditional” way to prepare it, but in my experience pass thai being spicy is about 50/50 at restaurants I’ve been to, and there certainly isn’t anything wrong with asking it to be made spicy
R2-D2One of the hottest dishes I’ve ever eaten where there was still flavor was boat noodle soup. I think it was with cow blood instead of pig blood. When they asked me how spicy, I said “make it how it’s supposed to be.” It burned, but I could still taste everything. Perfrct.
“Like you would make it for your grandma” usually works for me. But not if it’s the whole order, only if I am trying to get one item really spicy.
Once at an Indian buffet, the owner had okra out & I was so happy, love okra but he kept warning me off it - “no, no, it’s spicy” and I was like “Great!” and he would say “no, no, I mean it’s spicy” he really was worried.
Nope. It was not. Like, some perceptible heat, sure. But nothing anyone would consider too spicy. Like medium taco bell packet of hot sauce spicy. I was so disappointed after all the warnings!
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