Heat up winter with spicy eats from local restaurants: Jasmine Mangalaseril

Some people reach for extra sweaters, steaming hot drinks or hearty savoury stews to keep warm. Others lace foods with warming spices and chilli peppers to help keep the cold at bay.

And while chillies don't actually warm you up, they do trigger endorphins and dopamine, which can be helpful during cold, grey, wintery days.

If you can handle the heat, there is plenty of food in Waterloo region and surrounding area that can spice things up for you. And don't worry, these restaurants can dial the heat up or down if you ask.

Bringing the Mexican heat

Mexican cuisine is the result of thousands of years of history incorporating Indigenous, colonizer and settler food traditions, while highlighting regional ingredients and flavours.

In many Mexican dishes you'll find spices such as coriander seed, cumin, cinnamon, chocolate, saffron, vanilla and herbs like cilantro, epazote, and oregano.

And, since chillies originated in Central and South America, Mexican cooks have a long history of using chillies and drawing out their flavours and properties.

In Waterloo, The Cactus serves pozole rojo. This hearty soup is bright read and has pork, lettuce, hominy, avocado, radish and lime. Fruity and tangy, mild guajillo chillies add to the soup's colour and provide a piquant buzz.

Much of the chilli's heat can be found in sauces, of which mole is considered the star of Mexican cuisine.

"It uses around 52 ingredients," said The Cactus owner's son, Mauricio Bravo Jr. He explained their mix is imported from Puebla, where mole was invented. "The whole town dedicates itself to making mole... people think it's always spicy, but it's quite sweet."

Blanketing chicken enchiladas, the rich brown mole's complex flavour balances sweet, savoury, smoky, earthy and chocolatey. On the milder side of medium, it has a pleasant hum.

Spice blends from Ethiopia

Situated on the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian cuisine reflects its diverse population (more than 80 languages are spoken) and millennia of accessing spices from land and sea trade routes.

Berbere spice blend reflects those influences. Depending on the recipe, it can include more than a dozen spices. Its chilli kick is mellowed somewhat by smoky paprika, with the balance of spices, which can include ginger, coriander seed, clove, cumin and fenugreek rounding out its flavour.

It's a rub for proteins and wots (stews), grains, and vegetables. Found in Misr Wot, where it cooks with red lentils, oil, tomatoes, aromatics and other spices, it adds warmth to the creamy dish.

A popular dish at Guelph's Warka Tree Ethiopian Restaurant is doro wot, a stew with chicken and boiled eggs.

"Some of the doro wots... have carrots, all kinds of other vegetables. It's just because it's red, with berbere's colour, you might not notice it, but you can taste it," said Hailu Wakasha, co-owner of Warka Tree with his wife Sentayehu Tessema.

The stew features tender bone-in meat in a brick-red gravy. Berbere's smoky pungency balances the sweetness from long-cooked aromatics, vegetables, ginger and garlic, and there's a richness from spiced clarified butter.

Peppery Nepalese eats

Sitting between India and China, Nepalese cuisine melds both nation's foods, as well as those other Himalayan nations, such as Tibet. You'll find spices such as ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander seeds and turmeric in many dishes. Green chillies are used, as well as timur (also called Sichuan pepper).

Unlike chillies or black pepper, Sichuan pepper is the berry of the prickly ash. It has citrusy and floral notes, with a slight bitterness. Unlike capsaicin's heat there's a numbing fizzy buzz to it, like touching your tongue to a battery.

At Momo House in Cambridge you can get veggie jhol momos, a bowl of fire and flavour that combines momos (dumplings) with a sharp, flavourful broth, laced with tomatoes, cumin, ginger, coriander leaf, and chopped green chillies.

Another popular dish at Momo House is chicken choila.

"We toast with ginger, garlic, timur and chopped tomatoes and cilantro and green onion," said Ganesh Adhikari, Momo House's owner. "We mix with the chicken. We put some spices, like coriander powder and cumin powder, and a little turmeric powder."

It's similar to a chicken salad, but with well-spiced sauteed chicken. The chillies, garlic and ginger are pronounced, with soya beans and poha (rice that's been pounded into flat flakes) mixed in for texture.