“It still burns,” was all Zahirudd Khan could say after handsomely coming out on top at a hot wing eating contest at a small, elevated local Thai spot. A towering, working-class figure, of Bed-Stuy pedigree, donning an durag under his baseball cap, working as a chef somewhere in Dumbo until recently, Khan was a veritable symbol of the small weekend festival, conjured by Prasneeya Derry, who owns Tong, of 321 Starr Street, and who had promised in a press release that her wings could summon “an afternoon of excitement and daring feats.”
The promises had drawn a sizeable crowd, and even a small crew from News 12. Rob Flaks, the reporter from the station, would later estimate the gathering at “over 400 people.” They had come to see Khan & some 19 less fortunate struggle to eat a plate of ten wings, which came doused in a recipe that the “Tong Blazefury Spicy Wing Showdown Waiver and Release of Liability” form described as a combination of habanero peppers, chipotle puree and thai bird’s eye chili. Among the contest’s rules were “you cannot leave your table for any reason” and “vomiting will result in instant disqualification and total shame.”
Derry would later tell me that she had turned down some 50 people who had tried the sauce, not on the regular menu but made as a speciality upon request, and who opted out of eating it in those conditions. Those who made it were a varied lot. Sunnie Kwak, a software engineer at Amazon, told me she had been convinced by a coworker who was involved in producing the event. She had taken “the Hot Ones challenge,” and had come out on top among her friends. Why not play in the big leagues? Nervously, a small man in front of me admitted, in a low voice, that he worked in hedge funds.
Among these people, Khan’s win would come as no surprise and would feel something like the return of a great American cliche. He had been introduced to the crowd as the returning champion from the year before, and a longstanding rule about these kinds of things is that there’s always only one person who knows how to eat professionally and chew deliberately. When the wings were placed in front of him, Khan housed the plate “in less than one minute,” by Flaks’ count. Next to him, another contestant had barely begun touching his second wing. He gave up shortly after.
Pertinent, however, was bullet point #2 in “Rules & Grounds…” which read: “There is a 5-minute burn period after completion. You must sit and time yourself.” By all accounts, this seemed to involve stoically looking ahead while the remaining crowd either also gave up or struggled to make it second or third place, a prize that came with a t-shirt. Sweat fell down their brows, as he seemed to visibly burn. It’s all the back of the tongue, people liked to say, but it could also be well-felt at the front of it too. When I talked to Khan after, he said his father had passed along his durability to withstand another year of challengers. The prize for first place this year was some $300 in cash, a cask of sake and, most colorfully, a boxer medallion that read “2024 Blazefury: The Spicy Wing Showdown Vol. 2.” One imagines Khan carted it off, to join Vol. 1.
Tong is located at 321 Starr Street. Keep up with their hours on Instagram.
Photos taken by Andrew Karpan.
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