Taco Bell’s Volcano Taco

Taco Bell

Of course I had to try Taco Bell’s new Volcano Taco, or at least the Lava sauce.  I’d be lax in my duties if didn’t at least try it once.  So during all the running back and forth between the city and the suburbs, I stopped off at a Taco Bell and got myself a bean burrito with the lava sauce instead of the normal bean burrito sauce.

Two things come to mind:

1) I can’t say the lava sauce is any hotter than the fire sauce they already offer.  In fact, it may be less hot because the cheese is cutting the bite.  Sure, there’s a nice lingering burn, but it definitely didn’t make me leak smoke from my orifices or need to splash Pepsi on myself (more than I do now anyways).  All in all, it wasn’t amazing, but it was a decent alternative to the normal sauces.

2) I believe that “Volcano Lava” refers to what happens to your stomach after eating the sauce.  I didn’t eat again until 10:30 that night because I was convinced that the lava sauce had actually eaten through my stomach lining.  If THAT is what Taco Bell wanted as an end result, this sauce is named perfectly.

Hot (Sauce) Comments About Eating Challenges Week

Photo by Deb N.

A couple of friends here at work took the time and effort to leave some stories about their own experiences with hot sauce that should never be ingested, so I thought I’d share.

Up first is Jen, about her slightly foolish friend.

I have a friend, we’ll call him Pete (cause that’s his name,) who threw caution to the wind and disregarded all warnings about the secret, special, sign a waiver hot sauce that they keep in a cooler at Heaven On Seven and slathered it on a slice of white bread.

Silly boy missed the rest of dinner trying to wash out his mouth, throat and stomach and then ended up calling in sick to work the next day due to intestinal distress.
Yep. Beware of hot sauce served on a litmus stick.

That is all.

So true.  If they have to pull out the science equipment to serve you hot sauce, just say no.  You don’t have to prove your manliness (or womanliness) to anyone.  If you’re trying to impress your friends, it won’t work.  Because they’ll call you a wimp for not trying it and laugh at you mercilessly as you cry for the sweet release of death if you do.  It’s a no win situation.  That’s what friends are for.

Up next is Kristin, with her own tale of woe.  Go ahead Kristin, you’re on the line:

About 12 years ago my grandfather, sitting at our local pub during one of his visits to Chicago, learned from the pub owner of a hot sauce the owner’s son had brought back from Louisiana. The owner brought the bottle over to us and each of us were handed a toothpick. My grandfather having been through a bypass and a host to a pace-maker opted out of the obvious challenge presented by the pub owner. I however was all in! This was the hottest thing I could have ever imagined. I was not prepared for the pain that just a few drops would inflict. My grandfather found it all very amusing his granddaughter stomping up and down the bar with her tongue hanging out begging for beer. When my husband arrived about an hour later, we gave him a toothpick and told him to taste it, I said it was not that bad, my tongue was no longer numb and the overall burning sensation was gone plus there was bread at the ready behind the bar. His reaction was one of surprise and disappointment, how could his wife put him through such an ordeal….how could I not? Our reactions to this sauce gave an awful lot of delight to our friends and particularly my grandfather. The hot sauce was Dave’s Insanity Sauce, I’ve never had any thing like it since.

Rule number two in the mysterious food code?  Never agree to try something if it’s precurosered by, “Here try this.”  Look around first.  Is anyone else trying it?  No?  Put down the toothpick.

And if you’re looking for some crazy hot sauce shopping or gifts, and you happen to be in California, make sure you check out Hot Licks.  On an excursion to San Diego a few years ago, I wandered into the store and was amazed at the vast amount of hot sauce on display.  Floor to ceiling were covered in little vials of delicious pain.  I didn’t even know where to start, but I knew that with no prices on any of the bottles, I didn’t want to ask about pricing.  But, if anything, it’s a great little store to visit.

Eat It! Celebrating Eating Challenges – Day 3

St Elmo's "make-you-cry" Shrimp Cocktail

Day Three’s eating challenge was brought up in conversation last week when I was first discussing the idea of this eating competition hullabaloo.  My good friend Chris was telling us a tale of years gone by where he attended a friend’s bachelor party in Indianapolis when they went to “some steak house” that promised “the hottest cocktail sauce” they’ve ever had.  The waiter promised that if it didn’t make them cry, it would be free.

After some digging around on the ol’ intertubes it turns out that place was St. Elmo Steak House, and the cocktail sauce lives on.  In fact, the restaurant itself has been in the same place for over 100 years.  Now that’s an institution.

I haven’t seen any mention of the cocktail being free if you don’t cry, but I have found reviews telling of the “make-you-cry” cocktail sauce.

It’s a common tale, and one that is the main reason for why I’m celebrating eating challenges over the course of the week.  People who think they’re tougher than the challenge presented to them.  In this case, a table of grown men convinced that the horseradish wasn’t nearly as spicy as promised…until they started uncontrollably crying a few minutes later.  Chris shared that he didn’t even realize he WAS crying until he felt his wet face.

That, my friends is hot.

Wings To Go

There is a place that does still offer up some free swag (at least the NV location) if you can survive their hot sauce.  Wings to Go dares you to try their homicide wings.  Do you hear me?!  They fucking DARE YOU.  It says so right on their menu.

“Eat 20 original Homicide Wings in 10 minutes (no drink…no dressing…no celery). If you survive, you will get a Picture on the Wall Of Fame and a I Survived A Homicide T-Shirt & Hat. Oh, not to mention, we will pay for the beer and/or soda if you SURVIVE.”

There’s a story on the Brown Daily Herald that gives a firsthand account of people attempting to handle these wings.  A small excerpt:

After the Super Bowl, I found the three incapicitated in their rooms. The wings had hurt, bad, and the consensus was, to paraphrase, that the wings hurt even more going out than in. One housemate, Ike, said he kept on waking up in a sweat after he went to sleep that night. Another Hundred Winger, Jin, asked me for a bottle of Tums. When he returned it two weeks later, it was nearly empty. He had had an upset stomach the entire time, and had fallen victim to hot flashes.

We, and by we I mean most boys who occasionally lose the faculty to think, have all had this experience.  I bit into a pepper at Big Bowl after being warned against doing it.  The result?  I couldn’t feel my lower jaw for 2 hours, making it impossible to finish my meal with full tastebuds intact.  My friend who joined in with me?  Couldn’t eat his meal at all.  He just cried for a bit.  Good times.

I had another friend who decided he could handle the spiciest of spices at BD’s Mongolian Barbecue.  He didn’t care what went on there, as long as there was a warning attached to it.  The end result was a bowl of stirfry so nuclear that from 3 seats down *I* was crying the heat was so strong.  Needless to say, he didn’t finish more than a bite.

Because, as I said, we boys are occasionally quite dumb and stubborn.  Don’t tell us we can’t do something, because we’ll try and prove you wrong.  Even if it comes at great personal pain to us.