Spicy?

I just finished off a braised, "Mexican barbeque" burrito for lunch. I chose the "hot" sauce of chipotle and roasted tomato. I liked the flavour combination, but wondered how it could be considered "hot" when I was reading it off the menu. The "medium" jalepeno and tomatillo seemed it would be hotter to me.

By far the weakest "hot" sauce I've ever had. There's a slight tingle that suggests there was heat somewhere in there, but that's it. Meanwhile, one of the guys who had the medium with chicken is diving for his drink. Go figure.

I know chipotle, being a smoked jalepeno, is supposed to be hotter than it's unsmoked original, but I've never thought so. If anything, I find jalapeno hotter than chipotle. Maybe I'm odd that way.

Regardless, if a restaurant says it's got a hot sauce, I expect some fucking heat. There's another burrito place that has it's hot salsa and then a "stupid sauce" you can add to that. It's stupid for them to imply it's hot. Yes, it actually adds discernable heat, but it's far from "stupid" levels.

Then again, I used to mix up a hot sauce at my folks using what few hot items they had. Standard BBQ recipe, with Tabasco, black pepper, white pepper, chili powder, and cayenne pepper. Lots of it. My dad, who always put some Tabasco on things couldn't handle it. I loved it. Since then I've refined my spice tastes to actually include more flavour in what I do. Varieties of chili powders, including my favourite for heat - habanero powder. I'm not a chili-nut who grows his own secret super-hot peppers. I have no desire to try Bhut jolokia (ghost chili - 1 million scovilles), but I'd give a Scotch Bonnet a taste.

Point being, don't call it "hot" if it's barely detectable. I may change my dinner plans from a light chicken on lemon pasta with garlic-butter sauce to something a lot spicier now.