Portland in December

[boy in a kilt]

Go easy on the spices(like order level 1 with spices on the side), even if you think you can stand spicy food. I can handle some pretty spicy stuff, but level 3 had me sweating profusely and ready to pant with steam coming out of my ears.

She is not kidding. Sgtiger grew up with three levels of hot: spicy as hell, cauterize and spontaneous human combustion.

[Dianyla]

Oh yeah, Lemongrass is awesome. It's a bit inconvenient for downtown, though, whcih is why I hadn't mentioned it. Every so often a posse of my macho coworkers heads over to grunt and sweat their way through a "who can order the highest spice level?" contest. The scale goes from 1 to 20. I believe they can't even go above about 14 certain times of the year because certain key peppers aren't in season. Most guys I know that do serious spice can only take about a 5 on the Lemongrass scale.

Also worth checking out is Salvador Molly's, unfortunately their suburban Hillsdale location and the eastside location are both a little tricky to get to from downtown via transit. They have these things called Great Balls of Fire. Basically, habanero-laced corn fritters, with habanero jelly sauce. If you eat all 5 and the sauce you get your picture on the wall. I've done it (twice! what was I thinking? ) and... all I'm going to say is that you need 1 day of recovery per ball.