/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Without Googling, how many of you can name this thing?

Hint: I just had some Pho at the Ameristar in Colorado, and one of these things came in the soup bowl.

>>7926484
Chinese hotpot is extremely spicy from the high concentration of sichuan peppers and consuming it at a high temperature. However anybody who's eaten authentic chinese hotpot knows the real "numbing" sensation is from the star anise. These seeds literally numb your tongue and lips if you accidentally bite into one. I guarantee a person used to eating spicy peppers will feel uneasy biting into one of these as it's not capsicum based but rather an intense taste of menthol and sourness.

If a hole was burned into that man's stomach, the restaurant probably fucked up by using Japanese star anise which is highly toxic instead of the relatively harmless Chinese star anise.