by Luke McKinney
FoodConnect Toronto
luke.mckinney@foodconnect.com

The best and spiciest meat to be had in the multicultural melting pot of Toronto is barely in the city at all. Instead its home restaurant is rather far flung out in the Scarborough suburbs, possibly because the sheer spicy intensity has to be stored in a facility far from major population centers. The journey out may be intimidating (an hour and a half each way when taking the TTC from downtown), but this isn't a commute, it's a pilgrimage, and your heavenly reward is some of the best Sichuan food to be found in the continent.

The must-have meal on the menu is the unimpressively named "Chilli chicken". By the same logic the Mona Lisa would be called the "Woman's face" - the name just doesn't do justice to the sheer levels of flavor somehow contained within the small golden-brown pieces. This isn't just spiced meat, this is an entire bowl of red hot chillies in which ultra-succulent stir-fried chunks of chicken have sucked up more flavor than you'll find in most entire kitchens.

You're not meant to eat the chillies. I absolutely do not endorse the idea of taking your friends there and not telling them that, nor do I endorse taking pictures of the resulting hilarious facial expressions and e-mailing them to me.

Many of you have already decided not to have this. "I don't like things that are too spicy!" you say, and while taste is the most utterly subjective sensation in existence I can say without doubt or question that you are WRONG. It's not your fault, you're a victim of the foolish food fallacy that spicy should equal viciously painful. This is a cruel culinary confusion kept going by idiotic manliness competitions, tongue blistering fast food vindaloos and bar chicken wing buckets worldwide.

The incredible spiciness of this chilli chicken is a slow burn, gradually raising the heat the more you eat - and you'll find yourself burning right through your comfort zone, your hands feverishly searching the bowl for more tremendously tasty tidbits while your eyes run and you wonder why you can't stop. I've become the Prophet of Spice since my first bowl, spreading the word among the great unwashed. A business-suited analyst buddy kept chewing with tears running down his face, a recently-cured vegetarian student friend proclaimed "I now know why chickens were put on the Earth" - all creeds and kinds are unified under the shining light of this super-sophisticated spice blend.

You should join them.

Red Chili Chinese Restaurant (aka Sichuan Cuisine)
4771 Steeles Avenue East, Scarborough, ON M1V 4S5, Canada
(416) 335-0788