3 days ago
EXCLUSIVE Moment curry staff had to feed struggling diner WATER after he tried restaurant's super-hot dish that's dubbed the spiciest in the country
Every curry house thinks they've got the spiciest dish in the land.
But Bengal Village on Brick Lane, east London, has a pretty compelling claim to the throne with footage circulating on social media of bleary-eyed diners gasping for air and being fed water after trying their hottest curry challenge.
Viral clips show Mr Raj, the face of the restaurant's thriving social media, attending to cocky customers who have pulled up horribly short in their bid to wolf down the meal and earn themselves a free dinner.
The flagship dish sets punters back £22 but, owing to its dizzying array of rare spices, costs £50 to make.
It is, however, social media golddust, with increased attention on X meaning more diners piling into the Bangladeshi curry spot.
Mo, 25, has been running the restaurant for eight years and injected some Gen Z wisdom into the traditional eatery by pushing it online.
Speaking to MailOnline, he reflected on the growing buzz at Bengal Village but firstly set the record straight about the best way to treat a customer who can't hack the heat - and it turns out he doesn't agree with his colleague Mr Raj.
'We give them cold, cold mango lassi beforehand,' he said. 'We give them mango lassi after. We know how to make it quicker for them to recover when they are in pain.
'We also give them ice cream and Indian yoghurt. Definitely [better than] water. I've seen people have it with fizzy drinks, beer, and it's bad.
'We don't recommend [how to do it], we let everyone do what they want. But if one of my staff members had to do it, which I think is going to be my next video anyway, then I would give them cold milk to drink with it.'
The secret to the dish's head-thumping spice levels? Chucking in as many chillis as possible - 72, to be precise.
To make things even more terrifying, many are completely unknown and hail from the villages of Mo's native Bangladesh, where his father, who first opened the restaurant in 1991, emigrated from.
'In terms of Scoville Value [the measure of a food's heat], the hottest chilli in the world is, I think, Pepper X, and the second is the Carolina Reaper,' the owner said.
'But that's what the world thinks. My family were born in Bangladesh and they know certain plants and chillies that the world hasn't even discovered yet.
'They probably will soon...' he added wryly.
'We're making a loss on the curry, because the curry costs much more than £21.95 to make, because of all the different chilies. We have to cut it all and then use the chicken and the gravy, everything.
'So it costs about £50. Sometimes more, sometimes less, when we have to get the chillies from other places.'
Mo's father died last year, three decades after he first welcomed customers to Bengal. He gained an edge on his competition, according to his son, by being the best at speaking English in an area packed with fine curry houses.
'The English customers all loved him, so they always wanted a type of challenge,' said Mo, who took over the business while his five brothers set up restaurants elsewhere.
'My dad was doing it with much less chilli. So we thought, if we're going to do a challenge, we're going to need to add a little bit more.
'He also didn't do the challenge where anyone can win a table's meals free. Now if you win, your whole table's meals are free. Whether you're 20 people, 30 people, or just one person.'
Has anyone won?
' not unfortunately, congratulations to the guy that won, because you can't be cheap and someone has to be a winner,' Mo said.
'It was a ginger fella. That video actually got the most views, 3.3 million. Well done to him.
'But our main chef was not in. Our second chef was and he put in much less than 72 chillis - but the guy's still a strong man.
'The after effect is very bad but he was very strong. He didn't show any after effects actually.'
Some people can't get enough of the challenge, with one family even being encouraged to try some of Bengal's more palatable curries.
Mo added: 'We had the first lady ever do this challenge. This lady then came back the next week, which was two days ago, with her husband and son, and her husband doing the hottest curry challenge.
'Then they came yesterday, and they wanted to do another challenge, but we said "come on, both you guys have tried it, enjoy a curry, enjoy the time". Then they just had anything, and they loved it.
'Anyone that asks for the challenge, we always say: "Are you sure?" It's not good to judge people, but we can tell sometimes when someone can actually handle the spice.
'There's only some obviously crazy people that can do it. It's always the calm ones. The people that are overconfident, we automatically know, "they won't be able to do it".'
The most popular online clips show patrons staggering onto Brick Lane or locking themselves in toilets after trying the ferocious curry, but Mo was quick to insist that nobody has ever been hospitalised.
'It depends on the person, but it's normally a maximum of one hour of feeling a little bit bad,' he said. 'But we've seen people recover in 30 minutes or 15 minutes.
'Then we get an interview with them after they've recovered from everything. It's fun, it's nice.
'We've never had anyone hospitalised.'
Bengal Village's raging social media success has proved a bolt from the blue, boosting the business of a curry house which had enjoyed a steady flow of customers since Mo's father opened its doors in the 90s.
'He didn't really want us to be in the trade,' Mo said. 'He wanted us to study and be a lawyer, a doctor, we just saw how he always looked happy.
'We always wanted to be next to him in the restaurant while he was working and we just learned everything from there.
'When I first came I started focusing on the reviews. For small businesses like us, one bad review equals 200 good reviews, and then the rating goes down and people don't think the food is nice.
'Big businesses, like Gauchos, McDonald's, don't need reviews. They can be one star rated, and people will still go there because of their marketing and their brand awareness.
'So I thought, let's jump on social media and then take it from there. Everything is organic. All the videos you see are straight from my iPhone.
'I directly upload. I don't edit, I don't know how to edit, but everything I've been doing is natural.'
Ever more people are visiting the Brick Lane curry house in an apparent bid to blow their heads off with spice, meaning Mo is exploring options for a second branch.
But this time he's making sure he upgrades one vital facility.
He said: 'A lot of people are coming in. So we are thinking of expanding to a place where it's easier for people to get to, maybe in the City.
'We're going to make sure there's a separate toilet for just the challenges, because they do take a while in there. So we're going to have to drift everyone apart.'
