What I thought was the impossible in San Luis Obispo County finally happened to me: I ate something so spicy my eyes streamed in public.
The blazing heat on July 22 wasn’t enough for me. While most people tried to find solace indoors, or by the beach or a pool, I set my taste buds on fire at the Bringin’ on the Heat festival in SLO Public Market.
For one day only, 15 market vendors—restaurants specializing in cuisines from around the globe—participated in the event, serving up one spicy dish each. Customers cast ballots for their favorites. Winning vendors got bragging rights.
“I started looking around, and we have the Thai food [Baht], and it’s known to be spicy; the cheese shop [Central Coast Creamery] just got a Scorpion pepper cheese; there’s Jay Bird’s; and we always do hot sauces,” said Ariette Armella, co-owner of Rambling Spirits. “I thought, ‘Why don’t we all come together and do something fun since we all love spicy foods?'”
Bringin’ on the Heat is Armella’s brainchild, and she became our unofficial guide for the day. After shots of Ãœnderberg—a German digestif bitter to prep our guts—we started the afternoon with Grace Bacot of Humble Oven. She served a spicy meatball on a slice of focaccia, draped in a thick green serrano hot sauce and topped with coins of jalapeño and Fresno chilies. It was lip-smacking with an almost fruity heat. The spice stung just enough for me to go in for more.
Then came a cooling creaminess. Central Coast Creamery’s Jada Ramos brought out a slice of baguette with a thick spread of brie and glossy habanero apricot jelly capped with an intriguing chocolate-covered habanero.
“We have a spicy grilled cheese, and we have three spicy options for our ice cream as well,” Ramos said. “It’s just for today but there’s one glaze for the ice cream I kind of want to keep [year round], and it’s our chamoy and Tajin one.”
This is my public apology to New Times Calendar Editor Caleb Wiseblood. In my excitement, I was convinced the chocolate habanero was an olive, and Caleb unknowingly popped the whole pepper in his mouth. Wrong move. Nibbles of that habanero yielded a floral spice quickly tempered by the dark chocolate. But you’re in trouble if you eat it all at once.
High on the Scoville scale at 150,000 to 350,000 units, habaneros aren’t to be messed with. (Jalapeños are rated at 2,500 to 8,000, for reference.)
“I need water!” Caleb said. “My tongue is on fire.”
Armella delivered. Not only did she bring out glasses of ice water, she handed over a small paper cup of flaky Maldon salt. She recommended placing a pinch on our tongues to counter the spice. It’s a remedy from Mexico, she told me.
Our next stop was Jay Bird’s, SLO’s spot for Nashville hot chicken. Chef Richie Rodriguez assembled a lethal Fire chicken strip and pickles between two mini waffles and recommended I douse the sandwich with syrup. The hottest on the Jay Bird’s sliding spice scale, the Fire chicken is made with a mix containing ghost pepper and the Carolina Reaper, aka the world’s hottest pepper.
I tried a syrup-laced piece and felt nothing for a few seconds. Then it hit all at once. The spice hit the back of my throat and completely covered my tongue. Tears sprang to my eyes, and my nose started to stream. The Fire chicken made me grab a seat in the busy food court. Water and ice weren’t enough. After splashing my face in the restroom, my table was strewn with crumpled napkins, two empty glasses of water, an empty pint of beer, a mangled paper cup that once held salt, and my glasses.
“You’re like this now, huh?” Rodriguez said while pointing at his T-shirt with a sweating rooster on it.
Yep, I’m the chicken that cried chicken.
Respite came from Alexa Smith of Night Shift Cookie Co. Her chewy Mexican hot chocolate cookie cooled me down.
“It’s Dutch cocoa, cinnamon, and cayenne. It’s not too hot but you get the cayenne right at the end,” she said.
Recovering from that single bite of hot chicken brought me face-to-face with Chef Soma from the West African and vegan restaurant Veg on the Edge. Their take on plantains was the most creative dish I came across that day. It riffed on suya, a popular West African skewered street food usually made with meat. Veg on the Edge used mushrooms. The plantains were warm and delicately spiced, and the mushrooms were meaty.
“It’s peppered plantains with shiitake suya mushroom,” Soma said. “We add onions and other seasonings with sriracha maple sauce on top with green onions.”
Thai restaurant Baht’s Ganjah Noodles was the most flavorful creation that hit marks on spice and taste. Devised by manager Vincent Masasai, rice noodles were packed with thinly sliced beef, chili oil, chicharrones, green onions, and cilantro. The noodle bowl was full of umami and tingly heat, and I wish it was a permanent feature on Baht’s menu.
“It’s kind of from my hometown in Thailand, Udon Thani, but they also have [similar versions] in Bangkok too,” Masasai said.
For Bing’s Bao Buns, Bringin’ on the Heat meant a chance to show off their favorite spicy ramen. Chef and co-owner Mike Whittaker seasoned tater tots with the Buldak spicy ramen flavor mix and tossed the potatoes through flash fried ramen noodles, which coated the entire dish in a pleasing golden orange shade. Co-owner Sam Whittaker advised me to eat it without pausing too much because the heat can build up.
“So far we’ve sold 31 dishes! People really want that heatwave for sure,” Whittaker said. “I want it to be spicy but flavorful. I don’t want to just taste searing flesh in the back of my mouth.”
“We also offer to our customers that they can make anything on our menu spicy with no upcharge,” she said. “We love spicy food, and when we moved here we were all, ‘Oh, people don’t like spicy food at all!'”
She added that they pulled back on the spice level of many of their dishes but still highlighted the flavor profile every two months. Adding spice to SLO County was a pleasant surprise.
“We’re not going to shun the spicy lovers!” Whittaker said. “They came through the woodwork and said, ‘This is amazing, we want more of it.'”
I’m one of them. I was impressed with our abilities to put away the plethora of hot food that came our way. But we were reaching our fill. After downing Todo Bueno’s decadent spicy pork tacos, we needed to wash away the day at Armella’s very own Rambling Spirits.
There, her husband and co-owner, Jonathan Carpenter, doled out drinks like El Diablito with red gin and chile de arbol extract, a Serrano Spicy Margarita, and Spicy Kimchi Red Snapper—a gin Bloody Mary made with kimchi from Bing’s. I grabbed the margarita and the refreshing and much-needed Cleanse.
“The Cleanse is fresh-squeezed lemon juice, our homemade ginger-agave reduction, a little bit of coconut water, and navy-strength gin,” Carpenter said. “It’s supposed to mimic a regular lemon, cayenne, honey cleanse but a little more drinkable via cocktail.”
Sipping on those drinks, I scanned the market crowd. It was large enough to surprise all of us given the theme of the festival. The lunch hour rush went well past 1 p.m., and it was the busiest I had seen the Public Market. Vendors hope to host more iterations of the spice festival and other such food-and-drink gatherings.
By 6 p.m., the votes were in. Tabulated from 60 ballots, the spicy ramen tater tots from Bing’s won the title of spiciest dish, Central Coast Creamery‘s baguette bites won the most creative, and Baht’s Ganjah Noodles were crowned the most flavorful. Δ
Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal hopes for more spicy creations to grace SLO Public Market menus permanently. Send iron gut wishes to brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 3-13, 2023.