It doesn't look that spicy, does it? This potage is also Dish #20 in our countdown.

Welcome to 100 Dishes to Eat Now, the tasty countdown leading up to our "Best of 2012" issue. Tune in each day (weekends too!) for a new dish from the Fork in the Road team.

I've eaten a lot of very spicy food. Last Sunday at a Thai restaurant in Elmhurst, I ate something that made me start hiccuping. I've endured the habanero-festooned food of the Yucatan in the shadow of Mayan ruins, and Sichuan hot pots so hot, that the seafood inside almost jumped out onto the tablecloth. And yes I've tried the phaal at Brick Lane Curry House, but none of this could prepare me for a soup I was forced to sip rather than spoon up at a West African restaurant last week.

[See More 100 Dishes: When Raw Kale Salad Isn't a Punishment | New York's Beijing BBQ Carts Branch Out in a Big Way | A Sweet New Cookie Shop in Essex Market]

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Look out mouth! Here they come.

It's the best thing since the invention of shoestrings: French fries dusted with crushed Sichuan peppercorns. Cram a handful in your mouth, and they scrunch and squish like regular fries, suffusing your mouth with spuddy savor, but then the huājiāo sensation rushes in like a loudmouth at a party.

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Here is what the spiciest frank at Japadog looks like -- it doesn't look that hot, right?

Fans of spicy wieners usually know which ones to get at their favorite frank purveyors: At Crif Dogs, it's the "Spicy Redneck." At Bark Hot Dogs, you'd go for the "Chili Cheese," but then you'd have to smother it with lots of Bark Habanero Sauce to get the full, mouth-boggling effect. But what about Japadog?

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Geki Kara Ramen is $9 worth of molten chilies -- plus noodles.

Japanese cuisine has been playing footsie with chilies over the last five years or so, and it's the rare Japanese menu that doesn't boast a fiery dish or two. And today nearly all ramen parlors in the city (which must number nearly 50) have at least one hot option. The geki kara ramen at newcomer Tabata is the hottest I've tried so far.

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It's no secret that Xi'an Famous Foods' wide, chewy noodles are completely delicious, but when I was thinking about this week's Ask the Critic question--about where to get the city's spiciest food--I wondered what would happen if I asked for one of Xi'an's chile-oil-napped dishes extra spicy instead of just spicy, as I normally do.

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Toigo Orchards

Bottled Bloody Mary mixes are generally not an impressive lot, so you're excused if you think the headline on this post is a bit of hyperbole.

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The specialty of Peaches Hot House -- the new Southern restaurant in Bed-Stuy -- is the Nashville-style hot chicken, a regional dish rarely seen outside of Tennessee.

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Watch out for your tongue!

Utz Quality Foods Inc. -- the brand that flaunts a red-cheeked girl with a hair bow and no nose -- is located in Hanover, a backwater in southern Pennsylvania not far from the Maryland border. You'd never expect this snack chip company to have its finger on the popular pulse, but, boy, do they!

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It makes a pretty picture: an angry red bowl of ramen against a backdrop of wooden planking.

My noodle hang in the East Village lately has been Ramen Setagaya. Not the one on First Avenue that peddles such ramen arcana as a version featuring the noodles by themselves in a separate bowl from the broth and other ingredients. What's more, the noodles (called tsuke-men) are barely cooked, almost like you were eating them right out of the package.

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The incendiary, mouth-searing, mind-bogglingly-hot pepper shrimp at Maima's.

It always happens. No sooner had I assembled a collection of the hottest dishes available in city restaurants for the Spring Supplement, than I stumbled on another that put the others to shame.

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