There’s no holding the spice when it comes to my circle of friends. We all come from different backgrounds, cultures and spice levels, but when it’s time to eat, we seek out the heat.

I want to push it to the extreme. In sampling five fiery dishes around town, I began with a dangerously hot food challenge and continued until I tried tingly bites at a true Chinatown gem. Along the way, I recruited more spicy friends, and in the end, the spicy food of Las Vegas provided all the heat we could handle, in the most delicious way possible.

It’s a balmy 93 degrees outside when I arrive at Evel Pie on East Fremont to try the Reaper, a pizza so scorching hot, it requires eaters to sign a waiver before sampling it ... and then it’s lit aflame tableside. I can’t tell if I’m sweating from the walk over or from the anticipation of what’s to come, but I’m glad I wore loose clothing.

My spicy friends—Car, Ian and his girlfriend, NJ—appear just as prepared. Ian brought along his sweat towel. Car has slipped into a breathable button-up. And NJ has … wisely ordered a mild slice of pizza. “May the odds be ever in your favor,” she quips.

The rules of the Reaper mandate that contestants eat three whole slices, including the crust, in 10 minutes or less to beat the challenge. “You can drink your water, you can drink your beer, but that’s it,” Evel Pie manager Britt Dahlstrom tells us.

So what’s on this thing? “It’s a smoked spicy cheese and spicy chorizo. We have Reaper sauce, which we make with a Reaper powder, and we put the powder on there as well,” Dahlstrom explains. “We have ghost peppers, habaneros, and we make a Hot Willy sauce, which is pineapple with Buffalo, Reaper and all that. Then we also light it on fire with [Bacardi] 151.”

My soul leaves my body at the mention of the ghost pepper-habanero combo, an unholy marriage of spice that ranks near the top of the Scoville heat scale. A dozen or so people have conquered the pizza, Dahlstrom says, “But with the amount of challenges that we’ve had, I would say the success rate is maybe 10%.”

“Has anyone ever eaten the whole pizza and lived?” I ask.

She pauses. “Nobody’s even tried to finish the whole pizza.”

“All right, we have someone attempting the Reeeeeeeaper Challenge!” an Evel Pie employee cries out through a megaphone. A blaring siren announces the Reaper’s entrance, and I get my first look at the monstrous creation in all its Evel glory. It’s a full-sized pizza, glutted with plump, juicy sausage and shining with an angry red-hot hue. Sure enough, a waitress baptizes the thing in 151-proof rum and lights it on fire. The second I blow it out, our timer begins.

The first few bites taste delicious. But the flavors are a ruse to make me forget that this is a pizza worthy of Fear Factor. This is the bite that would’ve taken Keke Palmer down, even after her epic resilience on Hot Ones. My lips are the first things to go, stinging upon contact with the pizza sauce. The spice triggers a runny nose next, and then my tear ducts give in. I never expected to be crying into my pizza while sober.

“Just swallow it, don’t chew!” one man hollers.

My spicy friends soldier on. Car has munched past the midpoint of her first slice. Ian, who’s sweating profusely from his head, shovels down his second. NJ has taken on the role of supportive girlfriend—“I thought you liked spicy food? You gotta go faster than that!”—and for a while, the public shaming works.

But swallowing anymore of this fire bomb feels impossible now, and with that, Ian, our fastest contender, folds. With mere seconds left on the clock, the Reaper claims its latest victims.

“May God rest your butt holes!” the emcee declares.

Street Eats in the Heat

The Reaper had destroyed my stomach. It had destroyed my pride. But had it destroyed my taste buds? To test that theory, I turned my attention to the Fremont Fire Hot Chicken Sandwich at Project BBQ, a food truck built into the side of Circa Resort & Casino along the Fremont Street Experience.

Inspired by a trip he took to Nashville, chef Rex Bernales perfected his spicy chicken with a savory pickle juice brine, garlic aioli and coleslaw. But the winning ingredient here is sriracha. We’ve all seen restaurants tout the tangy sauce in their dishes, but it’s not every day a barbecue joint makes use of it.

“Is it really that hot?” I ask the kid working the front register.

His eyes bulge. “I’d say so.”

By the time the server plunks the sandwich and a side of chips down in front of me, I’m ravenous. This hot chicken has an honest-to-God weight to it—a ginormous helping of poultry wedged in a structurally sound bun. The sandwich is practically swimming in sriracha, but it’s love at first crunch-filled bite.

The pungent kick of chili tingles my taste buds, reawakening what I’d thought the Reaper had stolen. It’s great, up until I foolishly reach up and rub my eye. Before I know it, I’m stumbling around beneath the Viva Vision canopy like a day-drinking tourist who lost their last $20 playing three-card Monte with a guy in a Spider-Man costume.

I brave the heat that same weekend to visit Boulder City, where I find a Buffalo chicken poutine that’s packing heat at the Tap. Level 1 spice lovers beware—the Tap bathes this basket of carbs in a mixture of brown gravy and Buffalo sauce, topping it with chicken and spicy cheese curds. The marriage of vinegar, cayenne pepper and salt whipped up for this thick and addictive sauce makes for a quick spicy fix. And it’s a warm-up to my last fiery supper.

Big Spice in Little China(town)

“I forgot my sweat towel,” Ian announces as we seat ourselves at Chengdu Taste, a crown jewel of Chinatown’s Sichuan fare.

We haven’t even ordered, but you can smell the peppery aromas emanating from the kitchen. Chengdu Taste’s use of Sichuan peppercorns—tiny capsules of mouth-tingling, citrusy spice—have the properties to make a dish’s natural flavors sparkle and bloom.

We kick our roundtable of spice off with a family-style serving of one of the top sellers, Toothpick Lamb. The cumin peppered atop this mound of gamey meat is so fragrant, my mouth starts to water. Each bite delivers a pleasant kick, so flavorful I lick the toothpick clean.

Between bites of tofu tossed with chili sauce and a savory cucumber salad, I psych myself up for the main attractions on the table, two Level 3-spicy chicken variations. Everything about these dishes—the fried chicken with smoky dried red chilies and the “rural-style” stir-fried chicken littered with green chili peppers—smells like trouble. It’s a delicious trap, a feast for all my senses. My first bite of chicken, paired with the textured crunch of green peppers, dots my eyes with tears. Heat billows from my nose and probably my ears, but it’s delightful.

Somewhere down my assembly line of spicy friends, I register that Ian and Wade can’t feel their mouths. The peppercorns and chilies have apparently triggered a form of paraesthesia, a sensation of numbness on the lips and tongue.

“It’s like we’re all doing mushrooms,” Ian says.

My upper lip has started to sweat, but I can’t stop eating. I’m magnetized by the mouthfeel. Sips of water send vibrational ripples along my tongue. Everything tingles, and even the other dishes taste more pronounced now.

The heat at Chengdu isn’t malicious, but it is strong. And as a spice lover who has endured the highs and deeply painful lows of this flavor journey, that’s a level I’ll always appreciate.

Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!