When it comes to food, spice can be a real make or break for a dish. I have a number of friends and family members who go head over heels for the mouth-tingling sensation, but I know others who get an upset stomach after even the slightest sniff of chilli mayo.
I want to set the record straight right at the very start of this review and tell you all that I'm a complete wimp when it comes to heat in food.
While my mam and dad often opt for a madras when we order a curry each weekend, and my best friend even goes as far as a vindaloo (for some ridiculous reason), I'm that guy who will be mocked for getting a tikka masala or butter chicken.
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I simply don't see the point of spicy food. People say that it's full of flavour and 'the hotter the better' in that respect, but just I can't my head around dealing with the pain that ensues while scranning a Scoville-filled dish.
When I have tried in the past, my taste buds seem to get completely overwhelmed and I tend to focus more on making the burn go away then the flavours being consumed. I love the idea of being able to eat piquant cuisine, so I recently came up with the idea of trying the hottest of the hot - so anything else would maybe feel like a walk in the park and be much more bearable.
So I decided to try the world's hottest curry - the phaal. Here's what I made of the instance.
I tried a phaal and have never regretted a decision so much in my life
What I will say is that it was incredibly easy to find a curry house dishing up phaals left right and centre. As it's not exactly a go-to dish for many like a bhuna or a Rogan Josh, prior to ordering I assumed that I would really have to scout the depths to find somewhere selling one for home delivery on a Thursday night.
But to my relief - and I use that word in a bittersweet manner, as you'll soon find - there were about five or six takeaways around Sunderland stocking them readily available to order. After placing my order, I patiently played the waiting game for it to arrive.
In the meantime, I decided to call my spice-fiend friend Jonny and see if he'd ever tried one. We spent the next 30 minutes or so on Facetime, with him explaining to me that it was a terrible idea, and that he would never go as far as looking at one, never mind consuming it.
My dad also says he only knows one person who has ever attempted to eat one and it was for a bet. He alleges he ended up burning his throat.
As a little bit of an explainer for all who don't know what a phaal is; it's a curry which originated in the Bangladeshi-owned curry-houses of Birmingham, and is known as 'one of the hottest forms of curry regularly available'. Typically, it's a tomato-based curry including a number of herbs and spices including ginger.
But the kicker is that it also consists of viciously hot chilli's like ghost peppers, scotch bonnets, habaneros and Carolina Reapers. The latter strikes 1,641,183 Scoville Units and was declared as the hottest chilli pepper in the world by the Guinness Book of Records in 2017.
For context, your average vindaloo has in the region of 175,000 – 500,000 units.
After a brief chat, my tea had arrived, and the delivery driver handed it over before whisking off into the night. What I will say about the curry upon first appearances is that it looks no different to your standard bhuna or vindaloo - very colourful and has the normal viscosity as expected.
But that's where the similarities unfortunately end. I took a whiff of the lid before dishing the phaal out, and the only way I can explain the smell is that of pure incineration. You know how sometimes you can smell hints of turmeric or paprika in a curry? Well, there was nothing but the scent of raw heat and fire.
It also made me cough after catching the back of my throat, so I knew it was going to be brutal.
Now, I'm not going to brag that I ate the full thing, because to quite simply put it, I failed after the first spoonful or so. While you might not feel that initial heat on your tongue, when the curry slides down your throat and into your stomach, it bites with a vengeance.
Within seconds, I started to feel the sweat secrete from my forehead and a real sting on my lips. The pain was once that I've never felt before, and it didn't take long before my mind, body and sprit entered full-on panic mode.
My heart began racing and I started getting tunnel vision - common signs of that fight or flight mode associated with anxiety. I necked a pint or two of milk, as well as making the most of the garlic and mint yoghurt provided as a side, but nothing seemed to help.
After about five minutes, my head started pounding and the hiccups came along - which only made matters worse, as with every hic, a wave of heat travelled back up my gullet.
I'm writing this article at 7.49pm and there's still a tingle on my lips and a slight headache, just under an hour after consumption - the initial wave and brunt of things is over, but I think the sensation that I experienced when trying one of the world's hottest curries tonight will stay with me for a lifetime.
I'll more than likely just got for a chicken tikka masala next time...and I don't think me and spice will be seeing eye to eye any time soon.
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