Month: March 2011

Ladies and gents, I present to you my favorite new sauce of the year. It’s taken a mighty long while for this product to build itself up to that lofty level; Nicole and Johnny of Heartbreaking Dawns had shipped me a prototype bottle of this, their Trinidad Scorpion sauce, last Fall along with some of their yummy, experimental 7 Pot Chile Pepper Jelly. Ample time was given to me to employ the sauce in a variety of ways. I found that I liked it but didn’t love it, but I thought that it might have widespread appeal (and it did have signs of that, for my non-chilehead ex-wife had tasted some of this before our divorce and gave it a thumbs up, despite it scorching her tongue).

A few mere months later, Johnny sent a bottle of the Trinidad Scorpion sauce with the finished label artwork (absolutely killer!) and it’s final name, 1498 Trinidad Scorpion Sauce. The number 1498 signifies the year that Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad. Very clever, I think. Unfortunately, in conversation I still find myself mixed up on the year and will accidentally call this stuff 1493 or 1488. Oops. I have to tell myself that old children’s rhyme, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” and then account for a additional few years for the voyage where Columbus stepped on Trinidad soil.

St. Louis and its surrounding ‘burbs are largely dry when it comes to spicy eating challenges, plus the Gateway Area is not exactly a bastion of fiery cuisine in general. It was only a mere four weeks ago that I got a tip that some little Thai eatery up in North County was offering what us heat freaks were craving for…a capsaicin-fueled grapple that would test the limits on what our tongues could take.

The restaurant was called Pearl Cafe. Owners Scott and Tommy Truong decided to up the ante on heat in their regular dishes (which include highly-praised fare like tom yum gai, curries, and noodles) to get some additional attention for themselves.