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Despite sometimes being a bit too hot to handle, spicy treats remain at the top of Indonesia’s favorite-food list. Seeing a promising opportunity, numerous restaurants in Jakarta are in a race to take spicy cuisine to the next level. To help you choose the next destination to burn off your taste buds, The Jakarta Post presents the top five spiciest restaurants in the capital:

Warung Abang Adek

Spicy food lovers in the city should put a visit to Warung Abang Adek on their to-do list pronto. The restaurant may only sell the country’s most-popular instant noodle brand, Indomie, but it offers it in a not-so ordinary way: giving guests the option of adding dozens or hundreds of finely ground bird’s-eye peppers.

Visitors can choose how many chilies are mixed into either fried noodles or noodle soup.

There are at least five levels of spiciness that visitors can choose from. Guests can choose the 50-chili option pedas garuk (lacerating spiciness), or for the brave, pedas mampus (spiciness of death), which will see a 100-chili noodle dish put in front of you.

“This is not even human food,” visitor Annisaa wrote on her twitter account @pertiwi_annisa.

Warung Abang Adek has now opened on Jl. Muara Karang Raya of Muara Karang in North Jakarta and on Jl. Mandala Utara of Tomang, West Jakarta.

‘Nasi Goreng Mafia’

Nasi Goreng (fried rice) is considered by many to be Indonesia’s signature dish and in Jakarta people selling Nasi Goreng can be found on almost every corner of the city.

However, Nasi Goreng Mafia in Tebet, South Jakarta, is taking a different approach to make its product stand out from the rest: offering fried rice at five levels of spiciness.

 The restaurant also uses unique names taken from underworld gangs for its nasi goreng varieties, including the Yakuza, Godfather and Triad.

Richeese Factory

To foodies who love spicy food, fried chicken, and cheese, Richeese Factory is a great place to make your tongue dance.

This local food franchise gained popularity with its flagship meal, Fire Wings — chicken wings served with special barbecue sauce and cheese dip. Fire Wings is even more tempting with six spicy levels — named beginner, medium, hot, X-tra hot, X-treme, and ultimate.

“Level 5 [X-Treme] is hot enough to burn your tongue and even ears,” said 17-year-old Aurelia Natasha. “I am a spicy food lover but that level is a true challenge for me.”

 Aside from Fire Wings, Richeese Factory also lures foodies with its Combo Fire Wings and Combo Fire Chicken.

It now has 21 restaurants spread throughout Greater Jakarta, including in Blok M Plaza, South Jakarta, Tangerang City mall, Tangerang, and on Jl. Pekayon Raya, Bekasi.

Mbah Jingkrak, Waroeng Spesial Sambal

Mbah Jingkrak and Waroeng Spesial Sambal both offer Indonesian cuisine, particularly Javanese food, with hot ground chilies.

Mbah Jingkrak, meaning Jumping Elder, attracts food lovers with a list of unique dishes, like sapi gendeng (crazy beef), ayam rambut setan (chicken with satan’s hair), and tempe jingkrak (jumping tempe).

The meals are usually served hot with various ground chilies, locally known as sambal.

Meanwhile, Waroeng Spesial Sambal is well known due to dozens of sambal varieties, like sambal cumi (ground chilies with chopped squid), sambal Lombok ijo (ground green chilies), and sambal bawang (ground chilies and garlic).

Aside from the sambal menu, Waroeng Spesial Sambal offers a long list of Indonesian cuisine; from fried dishes to stir-fry vegetables.

Ramen 38 Sanpachi

Ramen 38 Sanpachi may tempt foodies with Japanese noodles, but to pamper those indelibly in love with hot food, the restaurant offers a touch of Indonesian spices: chopped bird’s-eye chilies.

Visitors can choose the amount of chilies added in accordance with spiciness levels, ranging from 1 to 10. Nonetheless, some people even dare to order level 53, which turns the ramen broth into dark red.

“There is no way I could order more than level 5. Level 5 already kills me,” said Justinus Aryogo, 28, recalling the time he first tasted the spicy ramen. “My friend ordered level 8 and he said that it was a huge mistake.”

Most Ramen 38 Sanpachi outlets are in shopping malls in the capital, like Gandaria City in South Jakarta, and Central Park in West Jakarta.

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