National Buffalo Wing Festival

I guess that we became official Buffalonians this past weekend because we attended the National Buffalo Wing Festival. We went downtown to Dunn Tire Park where the Bisons play. We joined about 100,000 people who came from all over the country to celebrate the food that originated here...Buffalo Wings.

Buffalo Wings are in fact chicken wings (sorry Jessica Simpson, they do NOT come from flying buffalo) covered in a hot barbecue-like sauce. It began at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York in 1964. And since then have become a favorite of men across the country. It is usually served at bars and during sporting events.

We met up with a girl named Cortney that I met in hospital orientation. She brought her boyfriend, Andrew, and we enjoyed the Wing Fest. You pay to get in and then have tickets to use at each booth. Two tickets gets you three wings (although some booths would give you more). At one booth the lady liked Spence and Andrew so much that we got six! There is an average of half a million wings served every year at Wing Fest. The booths come from all across the country and compete in the competition. There was even a booth from Utah! People come from all over to attend Wing Fest, too. We overheard someone saying that they drove all the way from New Mexico to attend Wing Fest!

Each booth had multiple flavors. We tried almost all of them until we were just stuffed. It was interesting and fun.

Cortney's cousin competed in the Miss Buffalo Wing Contest. They have to answer buffalo wing trivia questions and taste test buffalo wings.

They had other events like the wing eating contest. Last year, a tiny girl ate 173 wings in fifteen minutes and set a world record! It's crazy. They also have a 0.5K run. You get prizes for being the fastest and the slowest. It's silly but fun. People dress up like chickens and wear buffalo wing hats and all sorts of silly stuff.

This is the ballpark logo.






This is the entrance. I guess it is supposed to look like a chicken wing somehow.



Here I am at the entrance.



Here is Spencer getting tickets. The guy is wearing a chicken hat. Awesome!



This is me and Cortney with a buffalo mascot.



This is the last place that we ate wings at, Legend Larry's. They have won best wings for the last three years. The line was really long. We went and ate some wings. Andrew is in the picture holding a napkin to his tongue to try to cool it down. He tried a DOA wing, which are definitely the hottest wings there. Spencer and I didn't even try it. We just tried the hot garlic wings and about died! Some people were crazy and would ask for six or more DOA wings and ask for EXTRA sauce! They are just crazy!!



Here are some images of what is was like.



My mouth, my mouth, my mouth is on FIRE!



We seriously thought that we could blow flames!



My lips and my tongue were just burning. It burnt all through our sinuses and made our ear tubes burn!

We headed for the ice cream. Our salvation was Dippin' Dots. That's right. The ice cream of the future. You've all tried it.



We got some Cookie Dough Dippin' Dots and I stuck my lips straight into the bowl. It was such a relief. I don't know what we would have done without them. Although they did have a Blue Cheese booth with celery and carrots and...you guessed it...blue cheese. I had a hot wing earlier in the day, and that was my sanctuary.



Overall, we had a good time. It wasn't very fun to have to eat wings standing up. Spencer said that he felt like he was part of a herd of cattle going from trough to trough. But it was neat to try all the different flavor of wings. We still like Duff's wings the best, which we discovered before the Buffalo Wing Festival. They are freakin' good.

And it was really fun to hang out with my new friend Cortney. I hope that we can do more things with her in the future. She was a good guide for our first time at Wing Fest.