They are holding out. My experience is that they won’t serve true Thai hot to non-Asians.
You have to get to know them and convince them.
I couldn’t get anything spiced up or even a small serving of their peppers on the side until I took an old college professor with me. He had lived in Thailand for 15 years and knew what to say in Thai.
This experienced repeated itself several times.
Do I answer how spicy I like to eat, or how spicy my digestive system can take? Those are two very distinct thresholds for me.
I said jalapeno but that’s because it’s the hottest I’ve had so far. I could probably tolerate much hotter.
If you disregard the digestive system’s preference, then I assume the former. 
My tongue seems more tender than my GI tract; I’ve yet to experience the “wolfass” problem regardless of what I eat.
Yep, they Whitespice every non-Asian most of the time.
ONE Thai place here doesn’t. And they don’t even have it as “Extra Hot”. They have no spice, mild, medium, hot. Their hot is HOT and you will see TONS of red chili allllllll over your food. It’s fabulous! It’s not like where you order some XXX-Hot and it’s maybe your definition of medium. They also don’t ask, “Are you sure? It’s really hot!” You don’t like it, too damn bad!
I love that place! 
Oh, I do, much to my own discomfort and my wife’s disapproval.
Yeah, good point. I’m one of the lucky ones that always has a choice of at least three freshly made salsas at any time at home! Other than Taco Bell, though, I don’t know anyone who would use a bottled sauce on tacos, but then Michigan isn’t a big taco culture. It’s Taco Bell, or the Tex-Mex restaurants which have non-bottled salsas (I wouldn’t always say “fresh”) for tacos.
I think we probably consume fewer than 20 bottles of bottled salsa per year, and that’s mostly for popcorn, potato chips, or commercially-made sandwiches.
Actually, you might like some of the restaurants in the Mexicantown area of Detroit. It seems like everyone’s from Jalisco, and if you get out of the touristy restaurants into the more local stuff, you’ll find better food there than I can get here in Interlomas!
I can handle extremely spicy foods (my parents always cooked with spicy foods and I grew up with it), but I find it boring.
So I put down the Habenero- as I can eat those, they’re not bad, but I don’t really get the appeal. If i found it in my food, I would continue eating the dish, but I’d be slightly peeved as I wasn’t looking for any spice there- but i certainly can “handle” the spice.
Though every once in a while, I do get a craving for spicy foods and such and then I’ve got to go get some curry or something. But if I go to an Indian restaurant or something, I’ll just get “Mild” or “medium” just because I genuinely LIKE the way those taste compared to the Indian Hot and such things.
I can actually eat spicier than my Thai wife can, although that’s still not much, and I still don’t like it too spicy. Lots of Thais can’t eat spicy at all; it’s a myth that all of them can and do.
I put myself down as habanero. Now, not by themselves, you understand, but I very much like putting about half a chopped habanero in most stews or red sauces. Love the taste as well as the extra kick. I find myself using quite a bit of cayenne as well, and grow a few serranos.
There certainly is a limit to what I can take, heatwise: I still remember a curry I had in Dundee, Scotland that was mind-altering. I couldn’t finish it.
NajaHusband and I have a real problem with this. Evidently we look too white to mean it when we say “Thai national spicy, please” :(. I think we discovered the magic words though: tell them that you’ll pay for it even if it’s too spicy–we had a waitress tell us once that they don’t usually take such orders seriously because people are always ordering “extra spicy” and then, of course, complaining when it’s too hot. If you assure them that you’ll happily pay for it even if it’s too spicy, it seems to help.
The NajaHusband and I have a real love on for capsaicin, but I don’t want food that’s stupidly spicy, it has to taste good, too. Some places make ultra-hot dishes with no attention to flavor, assuming that the assault to your tastebuds will distract you I guess, and I can’t really eat that kind of food. All I can think about is how much my mouth hurts. On the other hand, if the flavor is good, there’s almost no level of heat that will best me. Thai food is the best kind of heat, with a Thai iced tea so I can cheat my way out of the really painful moments, of course :).
Anaamika, interesting that you say that. I tend to order Indian food much less spicy than other styles of cooking–I think it’s the novelty and complexity of spices that makes me care less about the capsaicin rush :). Also, it’s a whooole different kind of spicy!
I have not yet found my upper limit. I am eager to try the fabled Naga Jolokia, but it hasn’t reached retail in my area yet. (I assume it’s only a matter of time.) In the meantime, my girlfriend has introduced me to the ultrahot sauces made of extra habanero or even spiked with pure capsaicin-- Blair’s Death Sauce, Blair’s After Death Sauce (the motto of which is “Feel alive!”), Death Rain, Dave’s Insanity Sauce, and (my favorite) Scorned Woman sauce. I use those like other people use ketchup.
I like very spicy food. Someone once told me that addictive personalities tend to like spicy food, I should google that one of these days.
I used to love Habaneros, Grew them in my house. Unfortunately even though I still love em I can’t eat them very often. Since I developed really bad Acid-Reflux it just puts me in for a night of agony, and waking up choking on stomach acid in my lungs.(And that doesn’t even mention the ass pain of a digestive system that refuses to deal with Habs anymore) 