Life, liberty and the pursuit: A pursuit which has lead me to wings, beer and great music. Such a pursuit has guided me to the 2nd Annual Wing Fest held on August 24 at Nutty Irishman Bayshore.
LI Wing Fest competitors included
The Nutty Irishman (host)
T.J. Finley’s
KJ Farrells
Prost Grill and Garden
Rudi’s
The Lion’s Den
Sexy Chickens Firehouse
Dirtyburger (Nassau champs!)
The Half Penny Pub
Whoville
Wicked Wings Clam Bar
Changing Times (Suffolk champs!)
North Village Tavern
Even Flow Bar and Grill
Needless to say, Nassau and Suffolk Counties were well represented! Awards for the wings included Traditional Buffalo, Best Unique Sauce, Most Creative BBQ, The Island Cup sponsored by Miller Lite, County Champions (with a wrestling belt-style trophy) and the prized Festival Favorite trophy.
Now for the Winners!
The Nassau County winner for Best Traditional Buffalo Award and Miller Lite Festival Cup winner was DirtyBurger. The Unique Flavor award was won by Changing Time. The best Creative BBQ was Wicked Wings. The coveted Festival Favorite Award went to Even Flow Bar and Grill for the second consecutive year. In my humble opinion, Rudi’s Habeñero Mango wing was amazing. I am surprised that one did not place. Wicked Wings was equally as impressive!
After blasting through hundreds of pounds of wings, we turned our attention to the stage. We caught the tail end of All New Episode’s set. Noko, the lead singer of the group, is amazing. She is energetic and all over the place. The band really compliments her very well. The headliners were another Local Long Island band named Craving Strange. We have seen Craving Strange a few times before, and every time is better than the last. Craving Strange is the embodiment of this type of event. They are crowd friendly, energetic and the hooks are made to sing along to. Craving Strange are showmen in every sense of the word.
An interesting competition we observed is the One Million Scoville Challenge.
A scoville is the unit that measures heat in foods. A habeñero pepper is typically 300,000 scoville hot. How hot is 1,000,000 scoville? India’s Defense Research and Development Organization are using one million scoville peppers in non-lethal hand grenades. It is also used as pepper spray. Twelve brave people sat down to compete; congrats to Joe Menchetti for winning both the Mild and One Million Scoville Challenges. Stay heated!
As we mingled through the crowd, we were surprised by the diversity of faces we saw. This is the type of event that brings everyone out. We wound up hanging out with local musicians Year of the Locust front man Scot McGovern, Chech Funk’s John Sapienza. Reality chef Barret Beyer from Hell’s Kitchen season 11 was one of the judges. The wing masters of Long Island Wing Fest are proof festival goers will always respond to quality.
Big congrats to Danny and the Even Flow staff…. bring home the trophy this weekend at Nationals!!
