I saw that Wendy’s had introduced a new spicy chicken sandwich, and I like spicy stuff, so I had to try it. It had pepper Jack cheese, spicy chipotle sauce, and jalapenos. So how did it measure up?
It wasn’t as spicy as I was hoping for. If you want a mass-market spicy sandwich, I’d opt for the spicy chicken sandwich from Jack In The Box.
Until recently, Silicon Valley had another option: the habanero hamburger. The Prince of Wales Pub recently closed, but for a long time, it was the spiciest burger in the valley. A few years ago, a Googler stumbled across this bit of valley history:
Eating a Habanero Hamburger was once a rite of passage for new and departing operating systems engineers at Silicon Graphics. The tradition is apparently still alive and well in the graphics group. Having set the Silicon Graphics company record for number of Habanero Hamburgers consumed, Brian Totty brought the fine tradition to Inktomi Corporation.
That sounded like a neat idea, so a few years ago several of us Googlers made a pilgrimage to the pub in San Mateo. To make a long story short, the habanero burger was painfully hot. The habanero part referred to a thick red paste that sat atop the burger patty. After we ate the burgers, the staff clued us in on a few tricks: ordering the burger with mayonnaise or a glass of milk would reduce the burn. Knowing that beforehand would have saved a day or two of intestinal discomfort. 🙂 My wife couldn’t believe I was willing to eat an entire burger — but it was a good bonding experience with some fellow Googlers.
The pub is closed now, but there’s a video of someone eating a burger. If you watch it, you can see the burger heat from their facial expressions. The Prince of Wales Pub evidently closed in January 2007; does anyone know where else to get spicy food in Silicon Valley now?
