John S.
Yelp
The boys in Blue Öyster Cult had it down right when they said Don't Fear the Reaper. At least where Dave's Carolina Reaper slider is concerned.
I thought heat had finally met its match when I read a news story saying Dave's made customers sign a liability waiver when ordering a sandwich or chicken tender including Carolina Reaper peppers.
"You acknowledge that eating the REAPER can cause you harm, including, but not limited to, bodily injury, property damage, emotional distress, or even death," the waiver reads, according to news reports.
I wouldn't know since the staff at the Meridian restaurant didn't mention anything about a waiver and didn't even warn me that I could die or suffer a worse fate after eating my sandwich. Still, I didn't take any chances. I ordered a chocolate milkshake to go with my meal. Milk helps pull away the capsaicin, the pain-invoking compound found in chile peppers. Soda pop, beer or water just spreads the burn.
Here's what Tim Carman of the Washington Post wrote about his experience: "When I finally grabbed my order of reaper chicken, I could feel the heat before I tasted it. Its mix of chile peppers, including the Carolina Reaper with its 2.2 million Scoville units, vaporized and entered my system via the nose, like a virus. If you want to know what fear smells like, this is it. I tore off a piece of tender and popped it in my mouth. The reaction was immediate. I started to cough. My mouth turned blisteringly hot, as if I had just mistaken a curling iron for a candy stick. Water was pooling around my tongue. I began to breathe heavily, with an open mouth, like a dog at the beach. I sucked down a third of my shake, which provided only brief comfort. I had two bites and quit."
My experience was quite different. There was a bite to the sandwich, but it barely made an impact on my tongue and it produced hardly any sweat.
Dave's chicken sandwich didn't compare to the hottest meal I've ever eaten. That came at an Indian restaurant in Hong Kong, where the heat of a curry neared the height of my tolerance. Unlike Dave's where you have seven levels of heat to choose from, that restaurant served it up at one level, searingly hot. The quad habanero pizza at Flying Pie was also considerably hotter than Dave's chicken sandwich.
Still, it wasn't a bad sandwich. I'd place it a few notches below Popeyes, where their sandwich has a much better crunch and the piece of meat is much larger.
