Wings and Things

Sunday December 30, 2007 @ 02:33 PM EST

OK, so now you have a good idea of where to go. But if we’re going to talk about going to Buffalo, let’s talk about Buffalo, and what you’re going to get when you go out. Let’s talk about the best of the best of the best when it comes to Buffalo – food!

I’ve been to every state in the lower 48, and just about anywhere you go, someone is going to have wings on the menu, they’ll have a sign out front that says “We have Buffalo Wings!” But you heard it here first – no you don’t. You get Buffalo wings in Buffalo – anywhere else, they’re just wings.

(A disclaimer here: we Buffalonians know wings. So if you have people from Buffalo making wings, they’re good, no matter where you are. Still, Buffalo Wings only live in Buffalo…must be something in the air there.)

In and around Buffalo, every little town has its little bars, and most or all of them have a kitchen in the back. There aren’t many bars that don’t have a kitchen – and I guess even that is something pretty unique in itself. So while you’re here, you’re going to have ample opportunity to taste the worlds’ best wings.

What makes the worlds’ best wings the worlds’ best you might ask? Well, the thing about a wing is, at some places they come soggy…first things first! Chicken wings are not meant to be soggy. Period. They’re hot and crispy, dipped in some good old fashioned hot sauce. And the sauce – it shouldn’t burn like fire hot but just be good tasting sauce. When you get a wing in western NY, you’re looking at getting mild, medium, hot, or swimmers (if you’re from Buff you know what I’m talking about).

And there are those who say that what makes a really great plate of chicken wings is the quality of blue cheese that comes along with it. At some of the higher-end places you go to, you’ll get the dipping sauce and some real honest-to-goodness chunks of blue cheese right in it. That’s when you know it’s good. And of course, they have to come with celery sticks, you have to have some celery for some dipping, and to keep your mouth cool from all them wings.

Now, there is no better way to cool your mouth down from a nice plate of wings than with an ice cold beer. The bars in Buffalo know beer too boy, it comes with the territory up there. If you walk into a bar in LA and ask for a Labatt blue, they’ll wonder if it’s a color to paint the walls with – nothing against LA, but most places just don’t have Blue that far south. You get your Canadian beer in Buffalo, like you got Canadians in Buffalo. When the Leafs play the Sabres, it’s pretty much 50/50 for fans at the arena, and in a lot of the bars, it’s almost a home game for the Leafs. And you can bet those Canadians get along fine in Buffalo.

And now you have something that isn’t quite as famous as Buffalo wings, but it’s almost as good, and it’s unique to Buffalo: Beef on Weck. It’s a sandwich, a salted roll with roast beef, horseradish, and possibly mustard, and it is big in Buff – a lot of bars will serve it. With the horseradish, it’s delicious, but if you want to do yourself a favor, do something I do: whenever I’m in NY with my wife, I’ll make sure I go to a supermarket, and in Buffalo, actually all over western NY you can get a mustard called Weber’s – and you can get it regular, or hot horseradish mustard – and I buy a bottle to bring home. You can get it any supermarket, in a glass or in plastic containers, so check a bag because you have to take some mustard home with you. Anyway, that’s how I like my Beef on Weck. A nice sandwich dripping in horseradish Weber’s mustard.

So you know where to go for a cold beer, a plate of wings and if you’re looking to treat yourself, a nice Beef on Weck. But that’s not all we have, those hangout kids of places, we’ve got it all. Maybe some of you folks are looking for a really nice night out at a sit-down restaurant. Well in Buffalo isn’t short on really nice restaurants.

For exceptional food, you have some nice higher end places and the first I’ll recommend is the Chop House on Delaware. You want a fine dining, go there. Great food, and a very nice atmosphere. Another place, one of my personal favorites as a matter of fact, I went to this place years ago when the Sabres were playing the Maple Leafs in the playoffs 1999 – is a place called Hutch’s on Delaware. Come to think of it, there are a lot of nice places on Delaware (And as a sidebar to that, the older more established streets, like Delaware, you get some really interesting architecture as a bonus). Most of the places down on Delaware are going to be nice: really great food, nice atmosphere, even a comfortable place to hang out with a great menu, places that come highly recommended.

Now, I know last time I suggested that Niagara Falls would be an excellent place to spend a day driving around, but since then I had another brainstorm. We’re getting closer, so if you’re already here you might have your time planned, but if not, and if some people were going to be around, just south, literally 40 minutes south of the Stadium is a little town where the ski resorts will be, very close, it’s a nice little town, it’s quaint with nice restaurants, and beautiful in the wintertime: Ellicottville. You have Kissing Bridge, that one comes to mind, but there are probably three or four ski areas down there. Friends of mine have a condo and they spend every New Years Eve down there. You don’t think of western NY as a ski area, not like the mountains of Vermont, but the way the valleys are shaped, they’re great little ski resorts.

That’s another thing I love about my town. You have Buffalo, downtown Buffalo, with all the noise and action of a major city, and you drive for 20 minutes, you’re seeing corn fields. I love when I go back, people will tell me “traffic is horrible today,” and it might take half an hour. I just sit back and enjoy the drive.

So that’s that. But it’s getting close…so when you get down to the arena, the parking lots in Buffalo, it’ll be similar to football games, the temperatures don’t make a difference, you’ll get pigs on spits, with an incredibly festive atmosphere, there’s such a sense of making history these days! It’s going to be a dynamic day, I can’t wait.

And I know I’ll be seeing a few of you there as well.

BF

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