Roads Closed as Chili Aroma Burns Londoners’ Throats

Roads Closed as Chili Aroma Burns Londoners’ Throats

LONDON - Super spicy chili sauce being cooked at a London Thai restaurant sparked road closures and evacuations after passers-by complained that the smell was burning their throats, police said Wednesday.

London Fire Brigade’s chemical response team was called after reports that a strong smell was wafting from the restaurant in the heart of London’s Soho district Monday afternoon, a Metropolitan police spokesman said, speaking anonymously in line with force policy.

Authorities sealed off several premises and closed roads. The Times of London described shoppers coughing and spluttering as firefighters wearing special breathing masks sought the source of the smell.

The paper said firefighters smashed down the door of the Thai Cottage restaurant and seized extra-hot bird’s eye chilis which had been left dry-frying. It said they were being prepared as part of a batch of Nam Prik Pao, a spicy Thai dip.

“The smoke didn’t go up into the sky because of the rain and the heavy air,” The Times quoted Thai Cottage owner Sue Wasboonma as saying. “It’s the hottest thing we make.”

The police spokesman said no arrests were made in the case.

“As far as I’m aware it’s not a criminal offense to cook very strong chili,” he said.

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Roads Closed as Chili Aroma Burns Londoners’ Throats

I have been to a few Chili Cookoffs in New Mexico and Texas, and I have had some pretty spicy chili too, but I have had some really good, traditional Thai cooking and there is nothing that will light up the pallet with such a deep, intensely powerful surge of sheer PAIN like Thai done spicy, I have NO idea what their HOT stuff would do to you.

I can understand the Brits finding it offensive, they have pretty bland tastes in food, they like their meals mild, plain and rather tasteless, some of them will get adventurous every now and again and go for a spicy Indian Currie, but that’s really pushing it.

I don’t remember seeing very many, if ANY Brits at the domestic chili events I have attended, it might be their decidedly dull tastes that keeps them away, who knows, but it’s likely a good thing, some of the folks use some really hot stuff now a days, just to see how hot they can make a chili and in an effort to see what can be consumed and tolerated by the human body, medical research I suppose, and there’s always going to be lots of COLD beer, it just seems to compliment the chili, and that’s MY story and I’m sticking to it.

There is no resemblance between Thai chili and American southwest chili, but for a good laugh check out the link below, but remember, it MUST be a joke, there was a reference to beans, in chili.

Beans?? In CHILI?? That is a Cardinal Sin in the world of the true Chili aficionado.

That’ll get you thrown OUT of Terlingua, and any other self respecting chili cookoff for that matter, and I mean quite literally, thrown out on your ear, oh hell, must have been a damn Yankee wrote that joke now that I think about it, beans in chili. Indeed…

Judging a Chili Cookoff