Spice Up Your Life: Q Mex’s Marcus Medina on Being Raised With Chilies
People of the world! Every boy and every girl: In the lead up to our second annual Hot & Spicy Festival on Apr 20-21, we’re Spicing Up Our Lives with a few of the vendors to see what searing treats they'll be doling out at the rapidly approaching fine spring weekend. In this edition, we speak to Marcus Medina, head chef at Q Mex.
To paraphrase a classic song, Marcus Medina wants to make you feel "hot! hot! hot!" on Apr 20 and 21. The chef at popular Beijing Tex-Mex chain Q Mex is loading up burritos, nachos, and burgers with spicy peppers ahead of the Beijinger's second annual Hot & Spicy Festival. It's a task that he's keen to take on, seeing as he grew up with plenty of firey fare as a boy back in the US when his Mexican immigrant mother would crank up the spice level at dinnertime. He shares a few of those funny memories, along with more details about his plans for what Q Mex will serve at this year's festival, below.
Did you attend last year’s Hot & Spicy Festival? If so, what did you think was the best part about last year’s event?
I was on a trip last year and missed the festival. But I would imagine that Home Plate would have something good. Their sauces can be spicy when they want them to be.
What are you looking forward to most about this year’s Hot & Spicy Fest?
I’m definitely going to be here this time, and I’m looking forward to checking out all the stands and seeing what other people come up with. I’ll go search out the Indian restaurants.
Tell us about the spicy food you will bring to our Hot & Spicy Festival.
We’re going to be doing a spicy chorizo burger, same as last year. And we’ll also have chorizo cheese nachos and a chili chicken burrito. They’re all RMB 25 each. Or you can get two of those items for RMB 45.
We chop up fresh red chilies to make these dishes menu items hot. In Mexico, I’d use a serrano pepper but in China they don’t have them. We’ve found a local alternative that’s similar in taste though. It’s really spicy. In fact, we’ll have to tone it down from last year so that we don’t cause anyone too much pain! We crossed a line at the 2018 Hot & Spicy Fest, and we don’t want to make it so people can’t handle it [laughs].
What drink from your menu will go best with your spicy food?
For me it’s beer. We’ll also have a margarita machine there at the festival too.
Have you always liked eating spicy food?
Growing up, my mother only knew how to go from first to 14th gear when it came to spiciness and didn't know how to cook in between. So I learned about variations of spiciness when I went to school in England and started eating at the many Indian restaurants there. They have mild, and it goes up and up and up. Then I came back and could eat any style of Mexican food, including my mother’s!
Seriously, when she cooked something spicy the whole house felt like trench warfare in WW1, like a gas attack that made you want to jump out the window to survive. She had to wear double gloves, and she’d still complain the next morning that her hands were burning. One of her complaints today is that peppers are genetically modified to not be spicy enough.
In your opinion, which country in the world has the best spicy food and why?
The world’s spiciest food, without a doubt, is from Sichuan. Indian food, in general, is also spicy, especially Bengali food.
The Yucatán area in southern Mexico has notoriously spicy food. The weather is so hot there, and when you eat that spicy food you have to rehydrate right away. It’s a wonderful area, it’s where Cancun is, and then there’s a couple of cities over there that are pre-Colombian and early Spanish that are just beautiful.
I also like Hunan food. They have a shredded chicken dish that’s more chili than it is chicken! I have to take my hat off and wipe my brow every time I try it.
READ: Early Bird Tix Now on Sale for Hot & Spicy II Apr 20-21
Photos courtesy of Q Mex
