It finally happened. After decades of not quite getting along with other men, I finally became a bro. I didn’t even have to grow a chin-strap beard to do it. I didn’t do preacher curls until my biceps exceeded 18 inches in diameter, and I didn’t have to wear a single piece of sports merchandise.
But I did seek out the hottest chicken wing in Toronto, and I did eat a full order of them. That has to be sufficient.
Why else would suicide wings exist if not to affirm something, anything, about manhood? They don’t taste very good. No single flavour should ever dominate a dish the way spice does in suicide wings. And why else would such food almost always be found at sports bars, and why else would primarily men eat it? It’s because, in the absence of any real chance at glory in life, successfully eating an extra-hot chicken wing is the next best thing. I know from experience, dude.
April was an ideal month to “research” a story about the city’s hottest wings. The Leafs had made the playoffs for the first time in nine years. People would be watching lots of hockey games and consuming lots of chicken wings. I became one of those wing eaters. I went to sports bars — lots of them. I ate wings — lots of them. I thoroughly googled the word “capsaicin,” the name of the component responsible for heat in chili peppers. And, heck, I even learned a thing or two about myself.
My breakthrough into masculinity occurred after I polished off an order of the hottest chicken wings available at Drums N Flats, a sports bar near Avenue and Wilson, with ease. They were doused in the so-called Insane Heat That Will Blow Your Face Off sauce. The server advised me not to order those wings. He told me to order the second-hottest wings instead.
I opted for the main event, but I was scared. The second-hottest wings, I was told, make use of the infamous ghost pepper, while the hottest wings use ghost pepper plus another secret ingredient that I didn’t want to experience, apparently. He said he had only seen “a few” people finish an order.
So when I did finish those wings, I felt good. I felt good for precisely 300 seconds, which is a very long time for me. The server was clearly impressed. How could he not be? I had just eaten ghost peppers, otherwise known as Naga Bhut Jolokia, which hail from India. They are one of the hottest peppers in the world, clocking in at over 1 million on the Scoville heat scale. (By comparison, regular Tabasco sauce rates at up to 5,000, while police-grade pepper spray rates at about 5 million.)
As it turns out, the server was mistaken, so I wasn’t really that awesome (not at that specific time, at least). I later found out that the bar’s hottest sauce uses not ghost peppers, but habanero and Scotch bonnet peppers (which are both respectably hot at around 350,000 Scoville units) along with some other, less crazy peppers. I now know that the wings at Drums N Flats are good, as far as bar food goes, but they won’t actually blow your face off, which is disappointing.
Interestingly, another not-so-hot wing I ate during my “research” actually does feature ghost peppers: the suicide wings at Real Sports Bar, which are doused in a sauce made with ghost peppers, Scotch bonnet peppers and some flavour-boosting mango. A good wing, but not reaffirm-your-manhood hot. I imagine those ghost peppers must have lost some of their potency during storage, because they were mostly just cute. And probably unnecessary: Toronto’s truly painful wings do not use any ghost peppers at all.
To my knowledge, there are two places to go in the city for truly hot wings. There used to be three, but Richmond Hill’s All Star Wings & Ribs no longer serves its hottest sauce due to customer complaints (though why someone would willingly order a restaurant’s hottest wing, sign the requisite waiver before eating it and then complain about the spice is beyond me).
So: exhibit A is The Right Wing Sports Pub at Yonge and Eg. The Exorcist sauce here makes use of cayenne peppers (not so hot) plus The Source, a chili pepper extract that rates at over 7 million Scoville units (hot). It’s not quite the hottest wing in Toronto, but it does manage to retain a bit of flavour — a touch of fruity tang — beyond the spice, which extremely hot wings rarely do. After eating these, I had to blow my nose long and hard, a pretty good barometer of high spice.
But the king of spicy wings is exhibit B, the Armageddon wing from Duff’s Famous Wings. I finished an order of these, but I didn’t want to. The wing is as vinegary as it is spicy (the sauce, I was told, is habanero-based). As I ate them, I had to take a break to eat celery sticks dipped in blue cheese cream, something I would not normally eat. I didn’t want to lick my fingers. My lips turned bright red, and they hurt. I said “hoo” in a falsetto voice once or twice. I broke out in forehead sweats that lasted about 20 minutes after I finished eating.
This wing is the single hottest thing I have ever eaten at a restaurant in Toronto. And as my body calmed down from the capsaicin overload, I felt serene, until I saw the Wall of Pain, where some Adonis had immortalized himself for having consumed 52. Conclusion: I am a man, but not a god, which is okay with me. For now.
Later, when eating suicide wings was no longer a priority in my life, I started to feel antsy. Food tasted bland. I had built up an unusual tolerance to spice, and in the absence of heat, ennui set in. I realized that hot foods actually provide a palpable adrenaline rush. Jonesing, I went to Gandhi Indian Cuisine on Queen West, which historically serves intolerably spicy curry if requested. I ordered mutter paneer, and asked for it as spicy as possible. I ate it. A pinprick of heat. An iota.
If I wanted the thrill back, I’d have to go to Duff’s. And what could be more manly than actually wanting to go there?
