Food being cooked at Spicy Man at 958 Merivale Rd. in Ottawa. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA

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The deep-fried spicy boneless chicken, which has a three-chili designation on the menu, is having its desired effect. I’m a few mouthfuls in and my scalp and the back of my neck have begun to sweat.

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Deep-fried spicy chicken at Spicy Man on Merivale Road. Photo by Peter Hum /POSTMEDIA

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For that matter, the two-chili mapo tofu packs a punch, leaving a lingering, mouth-filling glow. Even the one-chili dry-fried green beans assert themselves with sharp pops of pungent, garlicky flavour.

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Mapo Tofu at Spicy Man on Merivale Road. Photo by PETER HUM /POSTMEDIA

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Dry-fried string beans at Spicy Man on Merivale Road. Photo by PETER HUM /POSTMEDIA

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“I wonder: How did they come up with the name for this restaurant?” says my friend, who has a gift for understatement.

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We were having lunch at Spicy Man, a Chinese restaurant that’s been open for more than a year on the north end of Merivale Road. My friend, who has never met a chili he didn’t like, dined with gusto. I must be a culinary masochist, because despite the discomfort, I couldn’t stop eating Spicy Man’s spicy stuff.

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But before chili-shunners stop reading the review, they should know: Spicy Man also serves dishes without chili warnings, which I and friends with low tolerance for chilis thought were quite good. In other words, Spicy Man could also be named Tasty Man.

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Owner Amanda Shi, who also owns Takumi BBQ, the ground-floor Chinese restaurant at 958 Merivale Rd., says she opened Spicy Man because Ottawa lacked authentic Chinese restaurants.

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Well, “authentic” is another fraught term for food writers, along with “spicy.” But I take Shi at her word. In Spicy Man’s kitchen, Shi says, there are chefs from China’s Sichuan province, renowned for its incendiary fare, as well as from Northeastern China, where Shi herself is from. Spicy Man’s menu reflects these two Chinese regions.

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Definitely attesting to Spicy Man’s authenticity are the numerous offal dishes on its menu, including items with tripe, beef aorta, pork liver, pork kidney and more.

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But perhaps my favourite hallmark of Chinese cooking here is the roar of the kitchen’s gas burners, audible in Spicy Man’s spacious, minimally decorated dining room. That sonic cue made me expect dishes imbued with what Cantonese cooks call “wok hei” — literally “breath of the wok” — a special char, smokiness and savouriness that only occurs when food is quickly stir-fried over intense heat.

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A chef stir-fries food in a wok at Spicy Man at 958 Merivale Rd. in Ottawa. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA

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Spicy Man’s menu is long — roughly 80 items, of which more than half sport chili designations. The three Sichuanese dishes mentioned above, while undoubtedly chili-bolstered, had other commendable flavours too. Saltiness, fermented-bean pungency and tingly Sichuan peppers all contributed to their complex but calibrated oomph.