Report – National Buffalo Wing Festival 2016

Another one in the books! The National Buffalo Wing Festival on September 3 – 4 in Buffalo, New York, delighted its attendees with a successful event with plenty of great food and fun entertainment.

There were vendors from mainly the northeastern U.S. and one from all the way out in Brisbane, Australia, that offered their versions of tasty chicken wings.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

What a great day in Buffalo! The Wing Authority got to sample some exceptional wings, at a reasonable $1 apiece, and saw a collectively enormous list of flavors. There were plenty of nuanced, complex Buffalo flavors including one extra hot sauce from Duff’s Wings that had my head spinning for a few minutes. Time for another beer.

Beautiful

If pressed, my favorites were the Hot flavors from Duff’s and The Anchor Bar. Maybe I’m biased toward the hometown favorites, but I think it’s due to another factor that we constantly mention at The Wing Authority, which is – sure, sampling chicken wings in a variety of sauces makes for a great afternoon, but when it comes to Buffalo wings there is a right way and a wrong way.

We shall observe and preserve the Buffalo wing tradition. Buffalo wings means red hot sauce and butter, blue cheese on the side.

We came across mango habanero, apple wings, Asian blends, and more. Fine. They’re worth a try. Just keep in mind – those are NOT BUFFALO. I’ll spend my tickets on wings that are TOTALLY BUFFALO!

Coca-Cola Field provided an open, sunny space for the event and despite the lines for wings, it was easy to get to the stage to check out all the entertainment and there were no lines for beverages. In addition, Marie’s had a stand for FREE blue cheese dressing. Our impression was that it lacked one or two qualities we look for in blue cheese dressing but hey – it’s pretty hard to complain about free cheese.  Extra props to Marie’s for supplying the blue cheese for the Bobbing for Wings contest!

There were several tents for much-needed shade and all the lines moved expediently. It was an extremely pleasant event and although we would have liked to see more vendors (possible suggestion: one set of vendors for Saturday, another set of vendors for Sunday), there was so much deliciousness and good vibes that we can’t wait for next year!

Check out the event website at: http://buffalowing.com, where you can see a real-time countdown to the 2017 National Buffalo Wing Festival.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *