National Chicken Wing Festival

This weekend, as has happened every Labor Day weekend since 2002, Dunn Tire Park played host to the National Chicken Wing Festival. My husband and I have gone every year since 2002, and it is always a good time. I was skeptical about going the first year, because food-based fairs are usually a little weird. Maybe it is just me, but it is kind of weird to stand around watching thousands of other people walking around chewing.

It has been fun to watch the festival grow and adapt as ever-larger crowds (almost 80,000 this year) turn out to enjoy Buffalo's most identifiable local culinary delight. I think this year was the first where it seemed like most of the wing vendors were not actually Buffalo-based businesses. It would be great to see more Buffalo restaurants showing their stuff. My favorite wings almost every year are taco wings from Swings on Bailey, though this year they did not have quite the same taco kick. I usually get Danny's chicken wing soup, too, but there was no way I was eating soup in 85-degree heat.

I tackled 9 wings total, and all were good. I prefer barbecue-sauced wings to anything very spicy while my husband is more of a wing purist, and the festival always has decent variety for both of us. We overheard a number of people talking about coconut wings, but that just sounded too strange to both of us. Arooga's Almost Everything wings were my favorite this year. Arooga's is a grille and bar located in Harrisburg, PA.

You can visit the festival's official website here.