Some Like It Hot

Gilles and I were running errands together yesterday and decided to head out to the west end near the airport to check out a restaurant that a recent article suggested had the best samosas in the city.

We like to occasionally buy a few dozen and freeze them for easy, last minute lunches.  We have a local place with an *ok* samosa, but not great.

The restaurant we found was a small, non-descript kind of place with both a hot food and take-out counter.  Getting carried away by the variety in the display counter, Gilles’ attention was captured by a tray of pepper pakoras.

Although Gilles likes spicy food, he doesn’t necessarily like over-the-top hot food and these appeared to be full-sized banana peppers.  I attempted to caution him that maybe they weren’t a great choice.

Now, Gilles can occasionally be …. how do I put this kindly? … pigheadedly self-righteous. Right now, any of you who actually know Gilles are vigorously nodding your heads at this understatement.

This was one of those times.

His response: “Bah.  How hot can they be?”

Me:  “What do you mean ‘How hot can they be?’ … we’re in an INDIAN restaurant.”

Gilles: “I’ll take six.”

By this point, the woman behind the counter was unsuccessfully stifling a broad smile, but I didn’t bother trying.  I was laughing out loud.  Six!!!!

So how were they?

The samosas were in fact the best we’ve ever had and definitely worth the trip to the west end.

… and you guessed it, the pepper pakoras were Holy Hell, Burn-My-Mouth-Off-Hot.

It was funny only because I was right.