Eating Out: Duff's Wings

"Ooh, let's order 100 wings, all medium hot; that's only very hot, not very very hot!" screams out one of the 8 little league boys at a neighbouring table. We're at Duff's in Buffalo, who may not have the claim of being the home of the original Buffalo wings, that claim goes to the Anchor Bar, but was the recent host of president Obama.

Of course you can make wings at home and you certainly don't have to go to Buffalo for the pleasure but there's something special about the wings there. I'd normally drive right past a place like Duff's, a decision based not only on appearances but also based on the fried, vinegar smell of the parking lot. Inside, the dark dining room is made even darker by wood panels. It's loud. There's no bar. The chairs are stackable and covered in vinyl. Nonetheless, we have to wait for a table for lunch.

We order 30 wings, which might be excessive but we were very hungry. We were not aware of the fact that the chicken wings at Duff's are from some sort of weight-lifting chickens with ridiculously large arms. 20 wings clearly would have been sufficient for our amount of hunger, which would have been 10 per person. This is the minimum order, and had we not been starving ourselves before, 10 mutant wings would have been enough to share.


After the wings arrive with their requisite celery and blue cheese sauce (spellt "bleu" in Buffalo), we dug into our wings, the smell of spicy vinegar permeating our nostrils before we could even take a bite. Too hot to eat just yet, I dipped my first wing into the cheese sauce. Not bad. We ordered the medium-light, after being warned that the medium is hot, and the hot is very, very hot. The medium-light sauce eats it's way through my lipstick and I can feel a light warmth outside my lips. Recharged after my afternoon snack, I leave the bar that I would normally have never entered, full of a not-so secret treat.