/ 11 July 2008

A curry too extreme for the menu

A London restaurant was serving up on Thursday what it hopes will be confirmed as the world’s hottest curry, with even the chef admitting it is “too extreme” to keep on the menu.

Vivek Singh at The Cinnamon Club grabbed some of the hottest chilli peppers known to man to create the Bollywood Burner, a lamb-based dish with a fierce kick.

The curry is so hot that diners are asked to sign a disclaimer confirming they are aware of the risks involved before daring to eat it.

The Bollywood Burner is being submitted to Guinness World Records for verification of its status as the planet’s hottest curry. The verdict should be announced within three weeks.

Student Toby Steele (19) from Brighton on the southern English coast, was the first to taste the Bollywood Burner.

“I’m usually a korma man and I suspect this is the hottest thing I’ve ever tasted,” he said. “It was nice actually, you could really taste the spices. The initial taste isn’t that hot but now, a couple of minutes later, I feel a bit floaty and light-headed.”

The dish, inspired by cuisine from Hyderabad in southern India, includes the naga and its seeds — confirmed by Guinness World Records as the hottest chilli pepper in the world.

On the Scoville scale of piquancy, the naga scores 855 000 — more than 100 times hotter than the jalapeno, which measures 8 000 on the scale.

“We found a list of the 10 hottest chillies and decided to try to use some of them. I think it will be the hottest curry in the world,” said Singh.

The curry will not be a regular feature on the menu, he added.

Lianne la Borde of the Daily Star newspaper said: “It is the hottest I have ever tasted. At first, it tasted delicious. Then my mouth caught fire. It even made me feel dizzy.”

Metro newspaper’s James Ellis said it was “innocuous enough at the first bite”, but one helping “saw my taste buds melt in fury at the inferno in my mouth”.

He added: “Meanwhile, my heartbeat, which started at a resting pace of 68 beats per minute, zoomed up to 128 — the equivalent of doing aerobic exercise.” — AFP