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w at er lo oc hr on ic le .c a W at er lo o C hr on ic le | T hu rs da y, A ug us t 25 ,2 02 2 | 6 Mike Gatto says you can fight the heat of the dog days of summer with a spicy-hot sandwich. He's talking about a vol- canic chunk of chicken in a bun that his restaurant calls The Hot Chick. Gatto and spouse Cindy Gatto own and operate The Lab Street Eats on Victoria Street in Kitchener. He says the spicy Nashville- style Hot can get you sweat- ing and yet can seem to cool you down. There's some bi- ological accuracy to the phenomenon. The Lab Street Eats, a bricks-and-mortar exten- sion of their food truck of the same name, opened in December 2021. "The Lab in the name combines a mad-scientist concept with an old-term use for the studio, where the music and magic hap- pens," says Mike Gatto. That means that if the mood strikes them, they can make tacos, or shift to barbecue or to something again altogether different. Right now, there's comfort food classics and street eats: poutine, mac and cheese, a Cubano and smash burgers. "It gives us the ability to play with whatever type of food we want," he adds. "My passion for food stems from barbecue and that comes from the Southern U.S. We've played with a lot of southern dishes." That includes some with capsaicin heat and no mad science. If it didn't originate at Prince's Hot Chicken Shack, the iconic Nashville venue lays claim to one of the best hot chicken sand- wiches on the continent, according to the James Beard Foundation. The Lab's version is very good in its conception and execution -- and it's darn hot; too hot for me, if you must know. The odd characteristic about the vanilloid recep- tors in your mouth and tongue (and on your skin) is that they are "thermore- ceptors" that prevent us from putting superhot things in our mouths, like boiling water. But the receptors also react dramatically -- and are in fact fooled by -- cap- saicin, the chemical irri- tant in things like chili pep- pers. Yet for many people (and I'm going to say most- ly human males), embrac- ing the illusory scorching of the interior of one's mouth is somehow desir- able. The Lab's sandwich came from a love for a Nashville hot plate, Mike says. He's a "big fan" of dill pickles and white bread for sopping up chicken juices with sear-your-mouth type of spice. "We wanted that plate in sandwich form and started playing with our own Nashville spice." It brings the heat -- which gets only slight re- lief from Cindy's dill pickle slaw, the echo of the origi- nal plate, Mike says. What started out as a special dish quickly be- came a fixture on the menu. "People enjoyed it so much that we decided to put it on full time." Then there was a fur- ther evolution, the genesis of which came from that micro-demographic of heat-seeking diners: ac- CHECK OUT THIS 'VOLCANIC CHUNK OF CHICKEN IN A BUN' FOOD AND DRINK The Nashville hot chicken has quite a kick, says Andrew Coppolino. The Lab Street Eats photo ANDREW COPPOLINO Column See SANDO, page 19 THE LAB STREET EATS Address: 105 Victoria St. S., Kitchener Website: https://thelabstreeteatsinc.com Phone: 519-208-4600