If You Can't Stand The Heat...

My Favorite Challenge Yet


I love spicy foods. That’s all there is to it. Salsas, sauces, wasabi, peppers. Anything I’ve heard of that is really spicy, I’ll give it a try. I think it is part manliness, part taste, and part competitiveness that makes me want to try the hottest stuff I can find. The fact that I can take the heat, enjoy it, and not start weeping uncontrollably afterwards gives me a sense of accomplishment.

My history of spiciness is pretty expansive I’d say. First of all, any of the hot sauces at Taco Bell, Dell Taco, etc should be ashamed to call themselves hot sauce. They are weak and only meant for the weak. When I see something called Fiery, I expect more than just chunky bits of tomato and onion. For example, there is a restaurant in Santa Barbara called "Freebirds" which offers a variety of salsas and I have been known to consume 10 or more containers of hot salsa in one burrito-eating session. This delicious salsa is very tasty indeed but spicy, not quite.

Getting closer to the realm of spiciness would be things like Tabasco sauce, banana peppers, and jalapenos but they’re not totally there yet either. Therefore if we want to kick it up a notch, then we’ll have to go to things such as wasabi and saracha (rooster) hot sauce. I once had a wasabi eating contest with my friend at a sushi restaurant where we kept outdoing each other with bigger chunks until one of us stopped. During this game of chicken, the chunks of wasabi kept growing until they reached the size of sushi rolls themselves! I think I did barely edge him out in the end but it was not a very happy victory.

Continuing along on our spicy journey, I remember a trip to Bakersfield I took a while back. I went to a Beer Festival and they had a booth that happened to be serving sausage links with their beer. To put on top of the sausages, you had a choice of two hot sauces: "Devil Sauce" and "Mother Fuckin' Hot Sauce" I believe were the names. The guys at the booth laughed when I put a sizable amount of Devil sauce (supposedly the hotter one) on my sausage link. However, I ate it with no problem. It was spicy but I enjoyed it. I didn’t fight the urge to spit it out or run to get some milk or anything like that so I saw it as an achievement.

Our next stop brings us to the mother of all spiciness, the granddaddy of the peppers: the habenero. My friend mixes pieces of habenero peppers and onions to make a slaw to put on top of carne asada and man is it spicy. However, I decided to step it up a little bit one day. I got the bright idea to try and eat a whole habenero by itself. Let’s just say I summoned the great Ron Burgandy when I did this and said “I immediately regret this decision”. If you notice, it is on my list to eat another whole habenero, which I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out why I would want to put myself through such misery again haha. But that goal is for another time. Finally we have reached a point to this blog (despite your doubts that there would be one).

I'm a big fan of a show on the Travel Channel called "Man vs Food". It's about a guy who goes around and does various food challenges at restaurants across the country. As it so happens, many of these challenges involve eating really spicy foods. For a long time, I had been wanting to do a spicy food challenge at a restaurant, mainly because I wanted to test myself. So, Jim and I went in search for a worthy challenge. We ended up finding a new restaurant called "Buffalo Wild Wings" #81. Eat at 25 new restaurants (2/25) and I asked about their Blazin' Challenge. They have 14 different wing sauces ranging from sweet to spicy and the Blazin' sauce is the beast at the top.





The Challenge:

"Simply eat a mere 12 wings prepared with our signature Blazin’ sauce in six minutes and you win. You cannot use any dipping sauce or eat or drink anything else during the challenge."


The waitress seemed to laugh at me and made absolutely sure I knew what I was getting into when I asked her about doing the challenge. She said a bunch of marines had recently come in to try it and they tried one wing and had to stop because it was too hot. She also said that one guy started crying while doing the challenge. I was pretty confident when we first walked in but after hearing these stories I wasn't nearly as enthused. But I was a man on a mission!! I couldn't back down at that point! So I told her I was doing it and there was no turning back. Next thing I knew, I was signing a liability form saying that it wasn't their fault if I died or something like that. I didn't really read it that thoroughly but, o well, I'm still alive today. So with my manliness on the line, and possibly my health, I dug into the plate of piping hot wings and crossed my fingers!





We did take a video of me completing the challenge but I had trouble uploading it so here are some stills from it:


1st wing down - 10 seconds in



Finished with time to spare!



The wings were hot, I will say that. But they were definitely do-able and I was nowhere near crying like others had supposedly done. The worst part of the challenge was afterwards because the spices stayed on my hands for a long time. I remember rubbing my eye that night about 4 hours later and it still stung! I was also a little worried I wasn't going to finish on time but I think I got it done with 30 seconds to spare or something. If I didn't have the time constraint, maybe I could've enjoyed them a little more haha. Anyway, it was a fun experience all in all. The waitresses brought out the plate of wings with a little alarm and got the attention of the room by announcing I was doing the challenge. One waitress even stayed at the table to time me while I was eating so it was kind of fun having them make a big deal about it. My picture will forever be on their wall of fame for completing their Blazin' Challenge and if given the opportunity again, I'd do it in a second.

#80. Do a restaurant’s eating challenge


As for the habenero pepper that awaits me.....I think I'll have to build up my courage a little bit more.....