When the dudes hang out, we usually have tons of intellectual conversations - what's your favorite burger in NYC, is Angelina Jolie still hot or too anorexic - you know some serious nobel prize winning shit. Well, one thing we always talk about is who can eat the most food between all the dudes.
The contenders are usually Porthos, fellow dude Kohji, Edmond Dantes, and myself. This usually is just all talk as sanity usually prevails and we realize this would be a terrible idea. Well, that's where the power of long karaoke sessions (
I'm on a boat mother eff'er) and tons of booze comes to play! This led our journey to KyoChon - a fantastic Korean fried chicken joint in Koreatown. The chicken was so delicious (we started with 4 large orders!) we wanted more and more which led to the phenomenal idea of the Dude vs Dude wing off.
Interviewing the hostess, waitress, and even cooks, Kohji was the favorite to win it all - it's the craziness in the eyes I've been told. But, my man Porthos claimed chicken wings was what he eats the quickest/most.
With nervous anticipation we had to lay down the rules.
1) 25 wing/drummies with half orders of hot and half orders of chili garlic.
There was actually some contention as the half order of hots could potentially be the downfall for Porthos since he doesn't dig the spicy food. But, the hostess was saying it was a must - after all, we were eating at a Korean Fried Chicken joint, so we obliged.
(kohji pictured below)
We originally had Arthur Anderson scheduled to do the chicken count, but they could not attend so the Cardinal and I did the official counting instead. But, alas there was a phantom wing on the floor (treachery!) - it was still OK as we took our cue from the great state of Florida and had a recount. And indeed 25 chicken pieces per person was still the count.
2) Only wings eaten clean off the bone would be acceptable as we clearly demonstrated here.
The Cardinal and myself would deem which wings were acceptable and unacceptable - pictured below were prime examples of our guidelines.
The dude had to drop the chicken bones off to a plate which the Cardinal and myself would judge. If it was deemed clean, we would dump them into the bucket and the wing would be accepted. If the wing was unacceptable, you had to clean that piece to the judges standard.
So after much nervous anticipation, we saw the checkered flag and Porthos and Kohji went to town on those wings. After staying neck and neck for the first 5 wings, Porthos showed tremendous technique and took a 5 wing lead. His technique was to pull one of the wing bones off cleanly and focus on the other bone - genius strategery that would have made Vince Lombardi shed a tear. Kohji's was the corn on the cob method where he was trying to buzz through the meat - strict aggression.
After about 10 minutes, Porthos saw the white flag and had one wing left. Through shear courage, Kohji buzzed through three wings in about a minute and we were down to one wing a piece. But this my friend was the day of Porthos and he would not be beaten. He killed the last one and took home the first ever Dude vs Dude crown.
The press were all over Porthos and with tears in his eyes and chicken extruding from his pores he was heard saying: "I've just shown you my kung fu...man my jaw hurts." Kohji being a true competitor vowed to be ready for the next battle - although he knew his downfall was the pitchers of beer we drank earlier. Great times and funny how all the cooks came out to take pictures.
Up next...dumplings. Who wants some?
