Which province has the hottest cuisine?

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Which province has the hottest cuisine?
Mar 11, 2007 19:52
GRIZ326 Points: Join Date: Jun 12, 2006 Status: offline	Which province has the hottest cuisine? I've heard people say it is Sichuan...others Hunan...but where does the food make you sweat and breath fire? ...and the real question is: Is the really HOT food only for tourists?

Mar 11, 2007 20:03	#1
MAY001 Points: Join Date: Sep 28, 2005 Status: Offline	Sichuan, Chongqing, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, etc. All of the above mentioned provinces can serve hot food. But the most famous must be Sichuan Cuisine.

Mar 11, 2007 21:29	#2
FAERIEQUEENE Points: Join Date: Aug 8, 2006 Status: Offline	in my experience it's one kind of dried red chili in Sichuan dishes that made one jump to the maximum and cry...

Mar 12, 2007 00:45

CHRISWAUGHBJ
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Sichuan is most famous, but Hunan is hottest. Hunan doesn't add the huajiao that numbs your mouth and dulls the pain. Hunan food is definitely the strip the roof off your mouth, sweating, eyes and nose streaming, breathing fire, seeing into eternity, mind floating away on a huge chilli-rush cuisine. 100% pure fire. Good stuff, I only wish my stomach could still handle it. Sadly, I've spent too long in the salty, un-spicy north. And it's definitely not for the tourists. If anything, they tone it down for us laowai. In my school in Changsha I used to eat breakfast in the cafeteria every weekday. The staff would place a large steel bowl of chilli oil (it's the oil that gives chilli its kick, remember) at the entrance. The teachers would come in, and at least half of them would ladle chilli oil into their bowls before getting their breakfast. And then some of the dishes that were served at lunch and dinner were literally just stir fried chillies. Large stir fried chillis.

Mar 12, 2007 12:31	#4
LIONPOWER Points: Join Date: Dec 11, 2006 Status: Offline	Sichuan is our favorite as we like chilly foods.

Mar 12, 2007 14:20

GRIZ326
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Very interesting story, Chris.

When I lived on the border with Mexico, some of my friends told me that the Mexican restaurants made their food painfully hot because that was what the American's expected. They told me that Mexicans only eat spicy foods, not the painfully hot stuff sold to gringos.

So Chengdu, the restaurants might try to take it easy on me? That's funny...but something tells me I might be thankful of that. ;)

I've never eaten really hot Chinese food. The Chinese food served in most restaurants here in the states is tame.

When the food is that hot, does it still have flavor? Or do you just experience HOT like you do when "over-dosing" on Jalapeno peppers???

Mar 12, 2007 22:38	#6
CHRISWAUGHBJ Points: Join Date: Feb 26, 2007 Status: Offline	Chilli is a flavour enhancer, but only up to a point. A lot of the food I ate in Changsha had only one flavour- HOT.

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