Geez, maybe they should have added wasabi instead; at least that clears my sinuses when I add too much.
kushiel, I love that stuff, but it seems like for me there’s a threshold where I don’t think it’s that spicy, then on the next drop it’s way too spicy.
I helped cater a buffet at which one item was brie en croute, bried cheese baked in pastry crust, and meant to be spread, while warm, on the crackers that accompanied it. Of course one person thought it was lemon pie and took a big slice, then complained about the spoiled food.
I know, you really have to dilute those spices down, or use them over a couple of days.
My story is from a Mexican restaurant nearby. I am cautious with hot sauces and spices, but they had this delicious looking hot sauce on the table and I thought I’d try just a bit.
Cue five minutes later, the waiter laughing at me while he brings me lots and lots of water, my SO laughing at me while he hands me tissues to stem the tears, and me alternately embarrassed and laughing and in pain.
Along the same lines, at a Chinese buffet I snagged what I thought to be a lemon tart. It was actually an unsweetened egg custard tart. Expecting sweet and getting savory magnified the unpleasant taste.
Was this revenge for something, or was she just like that?
I was lucky when I first tried sushi, my friends warned me about the evil green.
You kiddin? That’s only a buck a gallon!
Years ago I was perusing my Betty Crocker cookbook and came across what looked like an interesting vegetable. Starchy, mild flavor like potatoes. Peel, cut into cubes, boil for 20 minutes, serve with butter and salt. Sounded interesting. I headed off to my local market to get this interesting vegetable as well as other ingredients for that night’s meal.
The vegetable was a little hard to peel, but I managed. And it had a fairly strong odor. OK, REALLY strong. And the taste – well it might be an aquired taste. I managed to choke down maybe 3 pieces before I decided it wasn’t my cuppa.
Long story short, I learned that
While Jerusalem artichokes and ginger may look similar, they are not interchangeable.
Late. Much, much too late.
Alas it’s too late
That is not avocado!
Spicy doom awaits
I once saw a chef eat a ball of wasabi for 50 bucks. Surprisingly, he took it like a real champ. I think he threw up later in the bathroom, but he claims it was worth it. Chefs are insane.
One time at a Japanese festival somebody told me to try this Japanese mint ice cream. It was actually a bucket of wasabi. Haha… you’d think the fact that it wasn’t cold would have tipped me off :o Fortunately, the wasabi-powder mixture was not too strong.
Did y’all know that the wasabi you eat is 99 times out of 100 not real wasabi? Real, grated wasabi root is rare, even in Japan. What you think is wasabi is actually horseradish and food coloring. Lame, right?
There was a Chinese buffet I used to go to once in a while when I lived in Austin. They also had sushi ( I know, Chinese and sushi?). On the table next to the wasabi was a sign in Spanish warning that the green stuff IS NOT guacamole.
God, I did something similar. A friend of mine didn’t want her wasabi, so she put it on my plate. I thought she was giving it to me specifically to eat, so I popped it in my mouth.
A second later, she goes “oh my god, did you just put that entire thing in your mouth?” Now all my friends are staring at me.
As soon as she said it, the heat started. The terrible, terrible heat.
My friends ordered me to spit it out into a napkin, but I really didn’t need very much coaxing. No way in hell was I swallowing that thing.
Fortunately, as Robot Arm mentioned, the heat goes away about as quickly as it comes. It’s still pretty terrifying, though.
Love me some wasabi. I sometimes enjoy going to the conveyor belt chain sushi place because I know I’m not ruining any delicate, subtle flavors by dumping tons of wasabi into my soy sauce. Almost all of the pre-made pastes I’ve come across I can eat chunks of straight up. My eyes may water and my nose may run, but I’ll be eating another chunk in a minute. Like Jean Reno in Wasabi– I just don’t find it all that hot.
But fresh wasabi, grated right off the root? Damn, that stuff is spicy.
Several years ago we had lunch brought in to the office where I worked. I made up a sandwich from the ingredients there, and spread some mayo on the top slice of bread.
Let me just say that mayo and horseradish do not taste the same.
It was a professionally-catered event, so I expect they had portable electric refrigerated cold tables.
Holy crap, I did this, except it was a fish entree and I mistook the horseradish for tartar sauce.
Since then, I take very careful, very tiny taste tests of any unidentified condiment on the table before putting any of it on my food. Saved me from the Spicy Mustard of Death just a few weeks ago in Montreal.
You are absolutely right–horseradish is vastly superior. I sometimes have a roast beef sandwich just as an excuse to eat horseradish. Then again, I sometimes just have a grated horseradish sandwich, or eat it straight, so it’s possible that I’m insane.
More seriously…you really mistook horseradish for mayo? Do you mean a horseradish sauce? Actual grated/minced horseradish has a very visibly different texture from mayo.
One of the Chinese restaurants near my house has a sushi bar. Their menu has sections for “common”, “szechuan”, “cantonese”, “thai”… It’s more of a Far East restaurant but hey, works for me!
The other night Patty decided she wanted to cook cheese-steaks with peppers. She was frying up the peppers & thought the volume was a little light. So she sliced up and added some of my habaneros to the frying pan.
:eek: :smack:
Fastest I’ve seen a room cleared since hearing “Hey! Who wants to do the dishes…?” when growing up.
Once in a buffet in Collegeville, Minnesota, I found what looked like whipped cream and put a big dollop onto a pastry.
It was sour cream.:smack: I developed a sour cream antipathy that lasted ten years and was only cured by judicious application of pierogies.
When I was little I was at a pancake house with my family. My stack of pancakes was topped with a scoop of something white-ish and creamy. My father and brother had me convinced that it was ice cream. I ate a big spoonful of it.
Yuck.