Spice Up Your Life

Is there something wrong with you when you want to go back to a restaurant just for the hot sauce?

When you live a couple of blocks away from the Falafel Corner (a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurant, if that’s not obvious enough) and you really love their falafels but stopped yourself from ordering them when you realized they were deep fried (that’s what you get for using Wikipedia for everything) and now your regular order is the Mediterranean salad (no onions and no olives, just lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers and hummus) with extra hot sauce on the side please – and you think the best thing about your meal is the hot sauce – is that… not normal?

The hot sauce is SPICY, as in fiery hot spicy, but the spice doesn’t hit you immediately. It’s made with pomegranate and chilis and magic sauce (seriously), and when you first taste it, you’ll feel the kick in your mouth, and you’ll be seduced and you’ll want to eat more, and then BAM! your mouth is suddenly on fire and you need to chug your water (then you’ll realize it’s not helping at all so you just go back to eating as if nothing happened). It is really, really good. Like a Mediterranean version of Sriracha;  sexier, and more exotic (you’re Asian so Sriracha is not exotic for you).

So this is what happened: you’re trying to decide what to eat for lunch and the first thing that pops in your head is “I want the hot sauce at the Falafel Corner.” So you go there, get your usual salad with extra hot sauce please, plus an order of rice pudding with pistachio topping (people shouldn’t judge you for ordering such a rich dessert for lunch when you are sick and want to coddle yourself). Then you get home and marvel at the humongous serving size:

food1

look at that glob of hummus


food2

you decide to portion out the pita bread and just eat two out of the six (!!)


food3

and just a third of the rice pudding

Then you think “I’m going to take a photo of this glorious hot sauce and put it up on my blog!”

hot sauce

the reason for living lunch

And then you proceed to clumsily knock down the plastic container and spill half of the contents on the floor. You briefly considered licking the floor but you know you won’t sink to that level.

You madly dip the two triangles of pita bread in the hot sauce and the glob of hummus (really good too but not as great as the homemade hummus from Dave’s Fresh Pasta in Sommerville) and by the time you’re done, you hardly even touched the salad but your mouth is on fire and you’re actually full (but not full enough to skip dessert). Then you think, “I’ll save the rest of the salad for tomorrow,” but realize that means you’re not going back to the Falafel Corner tomorrow and you won’t be able to get some more hot sauce.

Lesson learned: next time, ask for two extra containers. Try not to be a klutz and spill on your floor. And admit that your hot sauce obsession is a little weird.

   

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