BrightestYoungThings: Wing Wars!!!!!

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Wing Wars!!!!!

April 27, 2009 by Alex Nicholson

all photos: Dakota
all words: Alex Nicholson

Thursday night at the Rock and Roll Hotel was the Food Play: Wings event. Dakota and I went to check out the wing eating contest, the melt-your-face-wing contest and to see which of seven spots would come out on top for the best wings on H St contest.

An added bonus was a station of all-you-can-eat wings for all attendees. The line for food was pretty dude-heavy, but I picked at a few wings. The first set tasted fine, but had the unfortunate mealy quality of being the last-wing-standing in a steam tray. The second set of wings was nice and crispy, but really I only ended up picking at a few and getting feedback from Dakota.

The first event of the night was a straight forward wing eating contest. Contestants had eight minutes to eat as many wings as they could, pretty straight forward. Except you have Russell from Sticky Rice emceeing and hurling insults, an out of place news crew from WUSA trying to get the perfect shot of “competitive eating,” a DJ in a chicken suit blasting music and two lovely ladies named Ginger and Cinnamon giving backrubs to the competitors and later donning rubber gloves to pick through bones. It’s remarkable how long eight minutes feels when you’re not the one on stage. I’m not sure how many wings the winner ended up eating, but I do know Jason from Rock & Roll tucked away 25 – so figure more than that.

The second contest was gold, pure gold. The melt-your-face wings were sauced in a habanero sauce and then rolled in more habaneros. Competing in this seemed like a piss-poor idea, but people signed up, and even signed the waiver. If there is a waiver, you should think twice.

There’s a lot of macho bravado that happens before eating a very hot chicken wing, all that goes out the window when the eating happens. This was a painful four minutes to watch. Every contestant, but one, cried. Every contestant, but one, turned bright red. Every contestant, but one, had a moment where their eyes rolled back into their head. The one man left standing, the winner of the contest will forever be known as Asian Guy. He seemed totally nonplussed by the entire thing, just popped wings into his mouth, removing bare bones.

When the contest ended, people in the audience started to question the strength of these wings. Each one would eat one and quickly shut the fuck up. Even Dakota, poor sweet Dakota, ate two. He looked horrified, and may have sent a text the following day with the words “fire” and “ass” in it. I’m still wondering how those competitors are feeling. Except Asian Guy, he’s cool.

The last contest of the night was a “Best of H Street” wing competition. I ended up as a last-minute judge and was joined on stage by several Friends of BYT. Best parts of judging a wing contest include demanding free beers and shots of Jameson. Worst part of judging a wing contest, sitting up on stage eating wings.

We were served seven sets of, gave each a score of one to 10 and wrote some comments down. I wrote “Smells like balls” for one unfortunate serving. The overwhelming winner of the contest was the “CCCC” wings by Casey from Taylor. Coming in second was Eric from Sticky Rice with “Cool Hand Jackie” and third was Chaz from Pug with “Toxic Waste.”

Casey’s wings were really delicious. The right balance of flavor and heat. He was kind enough to tell me what went into his wings and they include things like chipotle peppers, roasted jalapeños, raw jalapeños, roasted garlic, butter, hot sauce, paprika, cayenne pepper, lemon juice and cilantro. I loved these wings. The wings from Sticky were tasty and had a nice blend of peppers and citrus. I wasn’t really a fan of the wings from the Pug, but I don’t think wings should be green.

The wings from Granville Moore’s were actually excellent, but suffered from being first. We had nothing to compare them to, and they probably would have placed in the top three if things had gone differently. So yeah, sorry Granville’s.

Expect to see more food events like this in the future. We were told there is something planned for the summer, and then a real debacle of an eating/wrestling event in the fall. Can’t wait!