Wednesday April 22, 2015
For almost every day of the week, the local saloon up the road has some kind of dinner special which is usually too good to pass up and draws a lot of cruisers and locals alike. Â Monday it’s $0.50 sliders, Tuesday is dollar tacos, and Wednesday is $0.60 wings. Â Add that to their happy hour of $1 drafts and it’s no surprise that everyone from the marina makes their way up there within a few days of arriving.
Having already done hot wing night with the Sailing Conductors, I was extremely cautious in my choice of sauce and went mild instead of hot or even muy caliente. Â In a location with so many Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants you don’t want to mess with spice because they know how to do it right. Â My mild wings were perfect for me and honestly I could have probably handled something a little stronger. Â When Ben offered me one of his muy caliente wings I got it down without a problem and we began to have sneaking suspicions that there was only one sauce being used in the kitchen and being labeled with whichever multitude of spiciness that was requested.
After our new Aussie friends had been here only a couple of days, they also made their way out for wing night and I mentioned that the muy caliente spice was laughable and if they had any desire for something spicy it might still not fill their needs. Â I was wrong. Â When we saw them the next day they ranted on about how hot the wings actually were and everyone at the table was pouring sweat the entire time they were eating. Maybe the ‘one sauce for all’ incident was a one time thing and Ben and Hannes had lucked out on their batch not turning them into fire breathers.
Well, as you know, payback is a bitch and there was no way that Dan, Simone and Bobby were going to let another Wing Wednesday pass by without dragging me to the bar to eat a batch dripping wet in muy caliente sauce since I had forced them to do the same the previous week. Â Still wanting to go easy on myself, I split my order up between this spicy she-devil when we arrived and a much more mild orange tequila flavor.
When the wings came I timidly took a bite into my first one and thought ‘This isn’t so bad…I think Ben was right, this is the same sauce that was on my mild wings’. Â Then a few bites later the heat kicked in and beads of sweat were beginning to trickle down my forehead as well. Â Finishing off my Yuengling I picked up my second hot wing and couldn’t even get all the way through it before I was grabbing an ice cold Corona from the beer bucket the Aussies had ordered.
Putting the remaining hot wings on hold for a few minutes I moved on to the orange tequila ones to give myself a break, only to find out that any food that went into my mouth burned like hell. Â I couldn’t eat anything at the moment. Â Eventually my mouth cooled enough that I was able to regain the use of my taste buds and finished the orange tequila wings while being able to somewhat enjoy them. Â Then having a fresh cold beer by my side I went after the last three hot wings only to find out that you mouth numbs itself after 1-2 of them, and the third one wasn’t so hard to get down.
After wings we moved over to the pool tables when a few guys that work at the marina showed up and had already bought a few buckets to share with us. Â Who can turn that down? Â My billiard skills were put to the test where I failed horribly playing against Simone. Â Three games later I had to walk away before I could embarrass myself any further, and all of us realized that our quick dinner out was actually quickly turning into closing down the bar. Â So it goes when you have friends around. Â Especially when you have to prove to them that you can eat the same killer hot wings that you had told them ‘weren’t really that bad’.