David claims to like hot food....

..... but I'll bet he can't deal with phall. The WSJ explains the economics of an East Village curry cult (Sorry if the link is firewalled. ):

Managing partner Sati Sharma, who put the dish on the menu in a nod to its ubiquity in British curry houses, says that phaal is too spicy for even him. “I can only do a teaspoon at a time,” he says. “You don’t want to see a 300-pound man cry.”

From Brick Lane’s perspective, the number of patrons who complete the phaal challenge matters less than how many start it. Before (a documentary about the restaurant on The Travel Channel) aired, Brick Lane served five or six orders of the dish (priced from $14-20) per week. Since then, Sharma estimates he serves ten to 15 orders of the conversation-piece curry in a busy evening, with spikes in orders when re-runs appear......

Julianne Buenting, an Episcopal priest visiting from Chicago, texted a friend about the dish but didn’t order it. Told that phaal packs sixty times the heat of a jalapeno, Buenting crossed herself and said “Oy.”