Of the classic curry house curries — your jalfrezis, your bhunas — I think my spice limit is probably a madras. It’s tricky though because they vary so much. I once had a jalfrezi that felt like eating one of Satan’s testicles. On another occasion I had one that bored me senseless. May as well have had a tikka masala.
A mouthful into “London’s hottest curry” and I yearned for just that. This was disastrous in the mouth. The dish, which is nameless, is the work of Bengal Village on Brick Lane, in situ since the early Nineties. The family recently got into social media and silly food challenges — the hot curry and another one with poppadoms — naturally followed. Silly, yes, but Mr Raj, who runs the place, also donates a portion of the money made through these to Help For Heroes.
Back to this curry. There’s no way to be sure if it really is the city’s spiciest — Brick Lane is full of places making the same claim. It’s good for business, I imagine. Still, this one contains 72 spices from around the world, including the Carolina reaper, scotch bonnet, various forms of naga and birds eye, and one from Bangladesh called the “snake chilli”. Mr Raj also mentioned the “pook morich”, or “fly chilli”, but I can’t be sure because I was delirious while he was telling me.
The chefs at Bengal Village wear blue gloves when they make the lunatic dish, which is prepared with a paste made from those 72 varieties of chilli ground up into a powder and cooked off with mustard seeds, fenugreek, a certain type of cumin and so on. The sauce essentially comprises ghee, garlic, onion, chillies and spices, with very little in the way of tempering ingredients like tomatoes, though they do make up the base.
Served up and it resembles the depths of Mordor, thick and deep in dark, inky red, almost brown. It’s a sauce that wouldn’t look out of place in a witch’s cauldron and the only dash of colour is a large, decorative yellow chilli upturned in the centre and a scattering of chopped coriander. You can smell it coming. It trembles, almost fizzing with heat, and proffers a powerful fragrance that brings about foreboding.
I managed only one piece of chicken and a smattering of sauce thrust through pilau rice. The effects were immediate: sweating, eyes watering, feeling a little dizzy and disjointed. It is an intense, lingering heat, one that beds itself into your tongue, into your very being, and upturns you to be quietly, upsettingly high. I imagine it to be similar to that drug ayahuasca, made tedious people who like to talk about themselves too much go and have in the Amazon. I’m sure it isn’t actually but it feels equally ridiculous as a concept.
My emotions? Mostly upset. I did it because it’s my job, otherwise I wouldn’t bother. I don’t understand why anyone would, actually. Apparently one guy who tried it was almost hospitalised. Another trier was found minutes later rolling around on the floor of the disabled toilet and being sick.
Is this what passes for fun? Maybe. And that’s all that matters to me, a hedonist. But it is painful. Sadomasochistic, even, especially later on when the curry fires down the throat and hits the stomach. It doesn’t feel right — not so much a tummy ache, more an odd, resting dullness. I suppose I might tip my hat to any crazy cat who manages to finish a whole bowl. Those who are able to master the burn on the tongue, the catatonic delirium, must be strong indeed, or mad.
The curry is priced at £21.95. Bengal Village, 75 Brick Lane, E1 6QL, bengalvillagebricklane.co.uk
