St. Louis Wing Ding - In Words and Pictures
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ShareI'm proud and honored to have taken part as a judge in the First Annual St. Louis Wing Ding to benefit United Cerebral Palsy Heartland, which was held this past Thursday, August 25, 2011 at Crestwood Court Mall from 5PM to 8PM.
Tickets were available for the general public to partake in getting all-you-can-eat wings from 15 St. Louis-area restaurants. Around $10,000 was raised for the UCP Heartland charity!
1st place Tastiest Joe Buck's
2nd place Tastiest Highway 61 Roadhouse
3rd place Tastiest (3 way tie) Fallon's, St. Louis Wing Co and Helen Fitzgerald's/Syberg's
People's Choice Helen Fitzgerald's / Syberg's
Other Awards:
Meatiest Kirkwood Highlands
Best BBQ Weber's Front Row
Best Seasoned St. Louis Wing Co.
Hottest Wing Market Pub House
Although there was "blind" judging, I did immediately recognize a few wings. Helen Fitzgerald's / Syberg's famous mustard wings were unmistakable. The trademark fried crispiness and sticky sauce of Buffalo Wild Wings was a cinch to guess upon first bite. TGI Fridays and the Stadium Sports Bar had offered their distinctive, trademark tastes.
One wing the "wowed" me was St. Louis Wing Co.'s Coconut Curry wings. Normally, I'm more of a purist when kit comes to buffalo wings, but these babies had a rich, spicy curry/citrus flavored sauce and were coated with chucks of peppers and covered in shreds of coconut. Very unique and tasty!
8 restaurants also entered in the hottest category, with wing samples for the judges to try completely separate from the first 15. So in total, judges had to chow down on 23 wings for fair and accurate voting. It was unanimous that "entry #2" (or so it was referred to the rest of the evening), courtesy of Market Pub House, knocked everyone's tongues off-kilter with its ferocious ghost pepper/extract sauce coating.
If there were any negatives to say about the wings in general, it's that there was a lack of good, solid "traditional" buffalo wings represented that had a tangy, cayenne-style sauce with some kick to it. Many of the variations that fit that category were too weak, or were just too far gone with added ingredients that either made the wing too closely resemble a sweet BBQ-type or had too much garlic or parmesan cheese in it. I love it when restaurants experiment with different flavors (such as the aforementioned coconut curry), but a truly hot, classic buffalo wing was sorely missing.
Market Pub House, who would eventually win the Hottest Wing category, gets set up for the evening.
The trophy table
Hottest Wing award
The Grand Champion Tastiest Trophy
The crowds start to gather in.
Seating areas for wing fans
Music courtesy of Willy and the Poor Boys
One of the secret sauces: Frank's Red Hot, melted butter and...?
This restauranteur is prepping four different sauces tonight
A pan-full of fried buffalo wings just begging to be coated in a tasty sauce!
A batch of wings ready to go...
Wings were prepared in different ways. These particular ones were sauced and then fried in a saucepan.
These look amazing!
My place at the judging table.
Plenty of these wet wipes were needed, along with stacks of dry paper napkins!
The first four wings to taste and judge.
The judges chat while waiting for everyone to get their first plates of wings.
Legendary St. Louis area radio host Kevin McCarthy.
Is it time to dig in yet?
Rick Forkosh of UCP Heartland sitting next to Kelly Lamm of 100.7 FM.
The judging sheet
Freelance writer/blogger Andrew Veety sucks down a wing to the right of me, while I patiently await my next batch of four to judge.
Nope, no sweat! I was probably the only judge not dying, crying or spitting up from trying one of the Market Pub House's Ghost Pepper/Mad Dog 357 4 million SHU extract wings. Earlier this year, myself, blogger Ryan Graub and Mike Eisenberg of Wicked Cactus Sauce completed a challenge of eating 10 of these bad boys in less than 10 minutes.
Comments
2011-08-30 13:40:13
Larry
2011-09-03 09:28:26
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