hot sauces: a ghetto review

my relationship with "hot sauce" began with my dad and my sister putting hot sauce on almost everything they ate - Tabasco sauce, chinese hot chili sauce, vietnamese hot oil, jalapenos, chili peppers, etc. etc. and of course, i was curious about what all the craze was about, so i soon followed suit and would dabble in hot sauces. over the years, my dad gained a reputation for being able to tolerate extremely hot sauces. a couple of years ago, my auntie sent him a couple of jars of an indonesian hot sauce. my dad gave mack and me one of the bottles and warned that it takes barely a drop of it to feel intense heat. mack tried at least a tablespoon of it on his first try, i barely tasted a drop of it, and the reaction from us both was hot. after that, we got a kick out of trying hotter and hotter sauces as if there's some sort of on-going competition taking place - how much heat can you take, and who can take the most heat. the last hot sauce that was so hot and painful and good was a brasilian sauce that our favorite restaurant in paris made. it was so good that we sent a bottle to my dad. i thought it would take him a year to get through the sauce. he asked if we could get him more of it after three months.

mackenzie's parents just returned from their holiday in hawaii and los angeles. along with the many goodies they brought back were a handful of hot sauces. mack and i have tried three of them. i'm breaking a sweat just thinking about them. these are the latest:

colon cleaner, originally uploaded by mjane.

i'm not too sure about this sauce. mackenzie and i agreed that this was the least exciting of the three sauces. it's chunky and yellow/orange in color. mackenzie says it tastes like chutney. i don't think there's any spice to it at all.

see jane burn, originally uploaded by mjane.

mack and i think that this was the best sauce out of the three bottles. not only is the bottle art cute, the sauce is very tasty. it's like a mix between Tiger Sauce (another very good sauce) and Thai Sweet Chili Pepper sauce. and it's very hot.

pain, originally uploaded by mjane.

oh god. the title don't lie. i wouldn't say it's 100% pain when you eat it. it's like 90% pain. it's similar to an Asian chili sauce (the texture reminds me of the Indonesian hot sauce). but it is 100% pain when you take a #2 on the toilet. . . for days.