11 Times Adam Richman Took On Spicy Food On Man V. Food

Of all the spicy food challenges that Richman faced over his time on Man v. Food, he only failed one: the Fire in Your Hole Challenge at Munchies 420 Cafe in Sarasota, Florida. In terms of size, it was a comparably meager challenge. Richman only had to eat ten wings in 20 minutes without anything to drink but water. The catch was that those wings were covered in a mind-numbing mix of habanero and cayenne peppers, plus hot sauce, plus chili powder, plus crushed pepper flakes, and, the real kicker, ghost chili extract.

"What happens is your nose swells, your mucus passages swell in your nose, and your throat swells," Richman told Mike Chen of Strictly Dumpling. "So it was like I can't breathe, my tears burn, they are pretty intense... That was agony... I don't want to feel the way I did that day."

As if the challenge wasn't hard enough already, the odds were even more stacked against Richman than the many others who had failed before him. According to Food Beast, the chef put an entire bottle of ghost chili extract on Richman's batch. 

Still, judging from other people who've taken the challenge, there's a good chance he might have failed regardless. One person on Reddit who attempted the challenge made it through seven and a half wings and then "promptly went outside and blew chunks" after "breathing hurt" and tears were rolling down their cheeks.

One of the spicy challenges that Richman took on that wasn't based around chicken wings was the Spicy P'hall Challenge at Brick Lane Curry House in New York City. The restaurant serves English-Indian food and is inspired by the curry houses on London's Brick Lane. It's also one of the only places in the United States to serve p'hall, which is a curry that's all heat that was first created in the United Kingdom. The restaurant describes it as "an excruciatingly hot curry, more pain and sweat than flavor."

In the episode, Richman went into the kitchen to see how the curry is made before submitting his body to the challenge. He noted that the curry packs in more than 60 times the heat of a jalapeno. Case in point: Everyone in the kitchen while the curry was being made had to wear a mask — when Richman took his off he said it felt "like swallowing a porcupine." The chef also noted that it was so spicy that one person who took on the curry started bleeding from his nose.

The challenge pitted a 16-ounce bowl of p'hall against Richman. There was no time limit, and he had tall glasses of milk and mango lassi on hand. Despite saying that "right off the bat it's too hot to handle" on his first bite, Richman made it through the entire bowl and earned a free beer, a photo, and a certificate of completion.

In San Jose, California, Smoke Eaters restaurant has what it calls the Hellfire Challenge, an event the restaurant notes "has humbled even the bravest hot wing lovers." As proof, Smoke Eaters has a photo of Richman on its website that's signed: "It's even worse than it looks!"

It certainly appeared that way in the episode. Just before showing the challenge itself, a teaser shows him pacing behind the Smoke Eaters post-challenge, and declaring that he's "in the worst physical pain I've ever encountered." As to be expected, based on the rules of the challenge: each challenger has to finish one12-wing order of the Hellfire wings (which have more than 6 ounces of habanero chilis) in 10 minutes or less with no other food or drink. Also, there's no napkins, and after eating the wings challengers have to lick their fingers clean and sustain a five minute waiting period. There's a reason why out of the more than 9,000 people who've tried it, only 20 percent have succeeded.

Richman downed the wings, and commented that the sauce increasingly burned his hands as it couldn't be wiped off. The worst part, however, was licking his fingers and waiting as the crowd taunted him with napkins he wasn't allowed to use. "Milk, beer, not even the glorious wave of victory could extinguish the hellfire," Richman said. He later added that, after completing it, "the biggest prize at Smoke Eaters is the ice machine."

Richman headed to Charleston, South Carolina for the Bushido Seppuku Challenge at the Japanese restaurant Bushido. The rules were simple: eat ten spicy tuna sushi hand rolls without throwing up or taking a sip of a drink or a bite of another type of food. The sushi restaurant's rolls also had to be eaten in order, with each one getting increasingly spicier.

In the description for the Man v. Food segment, the Travel Channel notes that, at the time Richman undertook the challenge, only six people finished out of 475 challengers. That made Richman the seventh. That low number of successful attempts is for good reason. The eighth roll is filled with a whole habanero (which Richman compared to about 40 jalapenos), and that while the "previous rolls slowly built to an inferno inside me, number eight feels like an atomic explosion."

After Richman finished number nine, he signaled for the last one ("signaled" because he admits his mouth was too hot to physically ask for the last one to be brought his way). In the end, Richman finished all 10 hand rolls in 16 minutes and 25 seconds — faster than any other successful challenger. "I devoured the last molten morsel," Richman said in the episode. "Although it's hotter than hades it tastes like victory."

Whereas hot wings can be downed in a relatively quick period of time, a burger is a different story. That's part of what makes the Four Horsemen Challenge from Chunky's Burgers in San Antonio, Texas, so difficult.

The burger has jalapeno, serrano, and ghost peppers inside, and is topped with a habanero sauce (the fourth horseman). Challengers have to sign a waiver before embarking on a spice journey that few have ridden to the finish. Per the challenge rules, challengers have 25 minutes to eat the burger without milk or going to the bathroom (if the occasion arises, the restaurant provides a "chuck bucket," and there's a $20 cleaning fee if it's missed). Then there's a five minute waiting period to let all that heat soak in before claiming victory.

Richman called the burger "the spiciest outlaw I've ever faced" on the episode. He was given gloves to prevent spice burns on his skin, and he cut it into fourths to better be able to tackle the burger. Difficulties started on bite number one.

"One bite in and the four chilis on the four horsemen burger are already a million times hotter than I anticipated," Richman said before prevailing in the end. "It's more than spicy, it's diabolical."

While many of the challenges that Richman took on during his tenure on Man v. Food were above and beyond, the Firebrand Chili Challenge stands out as one where going above and beyond was necessary. Held at The Chili Parlor in Springfield, Illinois, the challenge pits a bowl of Joe Roger's famous Firebrand Chili against the eater. The official challenge specified eating just one bowl of the chili, but that was too tame for Richman.

"No one has been able to eat more than four bowls of Firebrand," owner Rose Hamilton told the State Register-Journal. "(Richman) will try to break the record."

Each bowl is between three-quarters of a pound and a pound, and Hamilton noted that she has to cover her nose when she pours it because of the spice level. The heat comes from spices that are cooked into the meat itself, and it's somewhat of a local legend in the area. The Chili Parlor was opened by Joe Rogers on New Years Eve 1945 and brought in a loyal customer base with its original chili recipe.

Richman was able to easily handle the challenge and set a new record for the number of bowls completed. It was a lot of spicy meat, to say the least.