Green chili: a weapon of mass destruction provided for free at every eatery

On the tables of Central Vietnamese eateries, there is always a small dish with some green chilies. It's free. It looks harmless. It isn't.

The green chilies here are bird's eye chilies — tiny as the tip of a chopstick, pale green, and looking like malnourished peas. That’s exactly the problem: the more harmless they look, the spicier they are. The large red horn chilies are actually the mild ones.

A familiar scenario for foreign guests:

• 0:00: "Oh, chili, I can handle spicy." Bites the whole pepper. • 0–8 seconds: Nothing happening. Starting to feel confident. Considering a second one. • 8–15 seconds: Something is happening at the back of my throat. • 15 seconds onwards: Drinks all the iced tea. Asks for another glass.

A few things you should know before moving to step 4:

• Water won't save you. The spiciness dissolves in oil, not in water. What is truly effective is milk, condensed milk in coffee, or a bite of plain white rice. • Biting a quarter of the fruit is a reasonable starting dose. No one is judging you. • The seeds and the white pith inside are the spiciest parts, not the skin. • Just say "no chili" when ordering to have it left out; nobody will mind.

The funniest part: the person at the next table will be eating chilies as if they were cucumbers, looking at you with extreme pity. They aren't doing it on purpose. They truly don't understand what is happening to you.