Tag Archive: wing event

50th Anniversary of Hot Wings

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Tyler Leave a comment Events |

Anchor Bar’s manager Ivano Toscani celebrating the birth of a legend.

Anchor Bar celebrated the 50th anniversary of Teressa Bellissimo attaining fried food enlightenment with the invention of the hot wing. I know we have been slacking on the content for a while (we are trying to do better, I swear!) but we couldn’t let a milestone like this pass us by without acknowledgement.

We want to give Teressa our genuine, heartfelt thanks for the glorious hot wing. Here’s to another 50 years of fried goodness.

Interview with Professional Eater Jeff “The Beast Man” Butler

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Tyler Leave a comment Events, Interview |

Photo Credit: http://www.vegasnews.com

We saw local Phoenician, Jeff “The Beast Man” Butler, at this year’s Wingstock event in Mesa where he completely destroyed the competition by eating over two pounds worth of wings. Shortly after that he made the jump from amateur eater to professional competitive eater. He recently competed in the 2013 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest where he placed sixth with an incredible 31 hot dogs eaten in 10 minutes. We spoke with him to learn a little more about him and what it takes to be a professional eater.

We saw you dominate in the wing eating competition at this year’s Wingstock. You were still an amateur competitive eater at this point, right?

Yes, I was still an amateur eater. Wingstock was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to go next year. Unfortunately, I can’t compete next season in the Wingstock wing eating contest because of my current professional contract. I will still show up to eat some tasty wings and hear some music.

After that event, what did it take to make the jump to professional competitive eater?

I always watched the Nathans Hot Dog Eating Competition on ESPN. When I found out the professional eating league, Major League Eating, was having a qualifier for Nathans Hot Dog Eating Competition in Las Vegas I entered the competition to get a chance to eat against Joey Chestnut and the best eaters in the world. At the qualifier in Vegas, I was a non-professional and beat all the Professional Male Eaters and a few select amateurs who were signed with MLE by eating 31 and a half hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. After the contest the MLE president Sam Barclay signed me to a professional eating contract.

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Yucca Tap Room – Hops N’ Heat Wing Eating Contest

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Tyler Leave a comment Events, Tempe |

Hop’s N Heat Wing Eating Contest

Well, we finally did it. We took on a suicide wing challenge. We’d been talking about it basically since we started this website, but we had never actually taken that task on. Which is not to say we haven’t had some spicy fucking wing sauce: The Reef, Cogburn’s, and that God-forsaken toothpick from NY Boys spring to mind. Still, there’s something different about a wing challenge; pitting your heat tolerance and lack of better judgement against whatever terrible combination of chile peppers and hot sauce the cook can come up with to destroy your taste buds…

Rob, Editor of beerphxation.com and President of Arizona Society of Homebrewers, reached out to Xavvi over Reddit to let him know about the challenge at the Yucca Tap Room. This challenge was a little unique in terms of wing challenges though. The idea was that you have to eat a dozen of the hottest wings they could come up with and down an IPA. Beer and wings challenge? I think it was fair to say we were excited to cover the event.

I had never been to Yucca Tap Room before this event but my wife was surprised when I told her about it. she didn’t think that Yucca Tap Room had a kitchen to make any wings. Turns out they have expanded (probably a long time ago for all I know) so they actually have two rooms now. They have the old room with the stage and the place next door with a kitchen and a respectable beer list. I had a beer in the wrong room before someone got me pointed in the right direction. (more…)

Wingstock 2013

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Tyler Leave a comment Mesa, Reviews |

The folks that run Wingstock recently referred to us as the Phoenix wing experts. Pretty quick after that someone let us know they did not feel the same. Their reason being that we think Native New Yorker is one of the worst wing places (we don’t actually, we consider them pretty average) and we should have them ranked number one because they are the most popular and therefore they are the best.

While their appeal to popularity argument may be a fallacy it does bring up an interesting question: Are we out of touch with the average Phoenix wing eater?

To be fair, our own views on the best wings have changed a lot as we toured the Valley going to every dive bar, pizza joint, and wing spot we could find. Native New Yorker was actually my regular go-to place before we began all of this.

I have to believe, though, that most people would have a similar experience as I did and they are picking Native New Yorker as their favorite because they haven’t been exposed to better wings rather than because they have tried them all and they hold Native up as truly the best. Native New Yorker wings are not terrible, and if you are comparing them to Buffalo Wild Wings or a similar chain they are going to look pretty damn good. They just can’t hold their own with the best of local hot wings. You know, like how Pizza Hut would look pretty damn good when compared with a Totino’s frozen pizza but it isn’t going to fare very well if you compare it with Pizzeria Bianco.

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Mesa AZ WINGSTOCK 2012

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Xavvi Leave a comment Mesa, Reviews |

WINGSTOCK 2012, or How I Quit Caring About My Waistline

In 2011, the good folks from the City of Mesa along with a few notable wing restaurants got together and made the first annual Wingstock event, combining hot wings, live music, beer and the great outdoors into one buffalo wing lover’s wet dream. While we didn’t get to attend the first one, we realized that the fellows of whydidieatthis.com needed desperately to get to Wingstock 2012 and see what all the fuss was about. It should be mentioned that we first learned of the existence of Wingstock from visiting NY Boyz Subz & Wingz, where we viewed the trophy they won for being King of Wings 2011, a title we absolutely could not dispute.

We took our spouses and made the trek to the Mesa Amphitheater, grabbed our media passes (thanks again to the City of Mesa for allowing us the access) and went in pursuit of wingly goodness. Here are our impressions of Wingstock 2012. Enjoy!

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