Worlds Hottest Curry - The Contestants

Its quite a hotly contested argument, but Indian restaurant owners and chefs alike are getting rather heated over the question of who exactly owns teh worlds hottest curry?

lets take a look at the contestants.

The Bollywood Burner

A curry so hot it comes with a health warning has been created by a London chef who is hoping to make the record books.

The Bollywood Burner is made with the eye-wateringly hot Naga pepper and seeds - one of the world’s hottest chillis.

The Naga pepper measures 855,000 on the Scoville scale of piquancy - over 100 times hotter than a jalapeno pepper which measures just 8,000.

Diners at The Cinnamon Club are required to sign a disclaimer saying they are aware of the nature and risks involved with tasting the lamb-based Bollywood Burner before eating it.

Chef Vivek Singh said his dish was inspired by cuisine from Hyderabad, the state capital of Andhra Pradesh in India.

He said: “We found a list of the 10 hottest chillies and decided to try and use some of them. I think it will be the hottest curry in the world.”

He added that the curry may not regularly appear on the menu: “I would create it on demand for customers but will not include it all the time, I think it’s just too extreme a dish.”

Toby Steele, 19, a student from Brighton was the first to taste the Bollywood Burner at the restaurant on Great Smith Street in Westminster.

He said: “I’m usually a korma man and I suspect this is the hottest thing I’ve ever tasted.

“It was nice actually, you could really taste the spices.

“The initial taste isn’t that hot but now, a couple of minutes later, I feel a bit floaty and light-headed.”

The Bollywood Burner will be submitted to the Guinness World Records for verification of its status as the world’s hottest curry. The results should be announced in two to three weeks.

Curry Hell

Bangladeshi restaurateur Rukon Latif, owner of the Rupali Restaurant in the city of Newcastle, says he has cooked a curry that is hotter than the Bollywood Burner. He calls it Curry Hell - a dish that he says was created by his father Abdul Latif when he opened Rupali in 1977.

“How dare they claim the Bollywood Burner is hotter than Curry Hell?” asked Latif. “Dad would be turning in his grave. We’ve been serving the Curry Hell for years now and it’s one of our most popular dishes.”

“But we’ve been thinking of ways to make it stronger - we are experimenting with using Mexican chillies rather than the crushed Indian bird’s eye chillies we use traditionally. The heat does not come from the chillies alone. There’s a secret ingredient too which gives it its kick,” he added.

Meanwhile, celebrities have been sampling the Bollywood Burner and sweating with delight.

Popular chat show host Jonathan Ross wolfed down the dish on television Friday night after signing the ‘by-my-own-will’ disclaimer. But Hollywood actor Steve Carell politely turned down Ross’s offer to sample a spoonful.

Lianne la Borde of the Daily Star newspaper said: “It is the hottest I have ever tasted. At first, it tasted delicious. Then my mouth caught fire. It even made me feel dizzy. Definitely, one for the connoisseur. ”

Chloe Scott, food editor for the Metro tabloid, said: “It is the seeds of the pepper, which make it unbearably hot. The chemical in chillies, the capsaicin, doesn’t burn but fools the brain into feeling pain.”

Metro taster James Ellis said: “I’ve tried the Bollywood Burner and, while scorchingly spicy, it is daal-icious. The lamb-based curry is innocuous enough at the first bite, especially if you only try the filling.

“But a mouthful, including the Scotch bonnet casing, saw my taste buds melt in fury at the inferno in my mouth. Meanwhile, my heartbeat, which started at a resting pace of 68 beats per minute, zoomed up to 128 - the equivalent of doing aerobic exercise.”

Toby Steele, a 19-year-old student who was the first person to taste the Burner, said: “The initial taste isn’t that hot but now, a couple of minutes later, I feel a bit floaty and light-headed.”