2008 National Buffalo Wing Festival!

Saturday night we went with our friends, Megan and Ryan, to the Buffalo National Wing Festival. Megan writes for the Buffalo Newspaper so she got us in free (cha ching!) and we got to meet some interesting people that she interviewed. It was in the baseball stadium that the Bisons play in and was filled with all sorts of wing vendors. Trav was in 7th heaven!
It wasn't cheap to buy all the wings ($2 for 3 wings!!) but we got to try out Original Anchor Bar, Native New Yorker, Wing Street, Buffalo Wild Wings, Pesci's, Legend Larry's, and a few others. I personally loved the Anchor Bar, but I also filled up on pizza, smoothies, and chocolate cake. Trav mostly stuck to the wings .
I don't know why we never grabbed some from this place, cuz Trav sure liked to say it a lot =)
It only took me five shots to get a good angle of this wing hat, but it was worth it with her licking her fingers! Trav and Ryan were trying to pretend they didn't know me while I shamelessly snapped pics of a total stranger.

I'm afraid to say we contributed to the many overflowing trash cans looking like this.
Hot Honey, Medium, Coconut, BBQ, Sweet and Sour.... we tried them all!







They had a stage set up with events going on such as Miss Buffalo Wing. Yes, it was a beauty contest based on your knowledge of wings. The winner gets to go on to the Miss New York pageant. Megan and I will be studying up to compete for next year!! Next, they filled a kiddie pool with multiple gallons of blue cheese, then dumped over a hundred wings into it. Two guys and a girl put on goggles and bobbed for wings for three minutes. The winner was some guy who works on Wall Street and goes by "Tornado". What a cool guy. I had manuvered my way through the crowd to get a better shot while I took video. Turns out, this was not a good move, because right after Tornado is announced the winner, he takes his goggles off and throws them into the crowd..... that's right, straight at me. I felt like I was on some Seinfeld episode as time went into slow motion and I could feel splatters of blue cheese flying all over me. They fell at me feet and I suddenly realized I was alone as everyone else had spread out and now formed a circle around me. So what's a girl to do, but pick up the offending eye piece and twirl it around her head, covering as many people as possible. Just an impulse :) As I made my way throught the crowd, people were actually stopping me to take my picture! What a crazy city this is!





Trav is trying to show the miniscule bit of dressing on his hand. Pobracito :)


Next up was the amateur wing eating contest. This guy named Anthony, in the red, was going at it. His family was all around us screaming their heads off. When he was done he pulled up his shirt and showed off his fat-storage skills. Reminded me a bit of the Truffle Shuffle from Goonies. Haha
I'll admit I had America's obesity statistics in back of my head while witnessing this event.
Well, we held our ground and were right in front for the National Wing Eating Contest. This is what the crowd looked like behind us. Just like the National Hot Dog Contest is in NY,NY on July 4, the Wing Contest is every year in Buffalo
Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas is in the pink hat. She got fifth at Nathan's this past year, eating 34 hot dogs. She currently holds the record for eating 11 lbs of cheesecake in 9 minutes and many other gut wrenching feats. She is 105 lbs. Badland's Booker is next to her, also a top-ranked competitive eater. I guess he's a rapper too or something. Well, Sonya won, eating over 5 lbs of wings, which was 173 wings in 12 minutes. It was something to watch for sure. Yum!
Because Megan got to interview Sonya, we got a picture with her!
Badland got second place. We had a ton of fun. Thanks Megan and Ryan for a great night! I say we make it tradition :)