You may think this looks like a photo of two devilishly hansom men enjoying a leisurely meal; but you’d be wrong. Not about the devilishly hansom bit obviously, no these prime hunks of man meat are the very pinnacle of aesthetic perfection. But that is no light lunch that they are having. No, it’s an excruciatingly painful exercise in misplaced machismo and general foolhardiness.
The Quaker Steak and Lube is an American chain of restaurants specializing in buffalo wings and other nutritionally dubious foodstuffs (and very delicious it all is too). It has a couple of gimmicks. The first is an automotive decor them,; and the second is the spiciness of some of it’s food.
The heat of chilli peppers is measured in something called SHU (that’s Scoville Heat Units in case you’re really interested). A bell pepper is about 100 SHU, Cayenne pepper is 30,000, and the “Atomic wing sauce” at Quaker Steak and Lube is a whopping 150,000 SHU.
Ever since Greg saw the Atomic wing sauce on the menu he has been tempted to try it; but it took the visit of a fellow idiot from across the pond for him to take the plunge.
Blimey those buffalo wings are hot. Sweat inducing face reddening hot. Greg even swore that he could feel his ear wax melting. We ordered five, ate two each, and neither of us could face the remaining one (even though to do so would have put the score at 3 – 2, crowning the consumer the ultimate chilli champion). After about ten minutes of nothing but frantic blinking and tiny whimpering noises we finally pulled ourselves together enough to agree that we would never attempt anything quite so foolish again. Next time we want to prove our manliness to each other we’ll just go straight to smashing our heads together like rutting stags rather than go through all that again.
On another food related note I’m fairly sure that our week long visit here has put me back about two months on my weight loss campaign. But you know what? I don’t care. I’m on holiday damnit and there’s Baby Ruth chocolate bars and cheesecake to eat. I’ll get back on the wagon when we return home on Tuesday, in fact I’m going to step it up a bit in preparation for the Cumbria Way at the end of May. But for now I’m cramming my mouth with grease and fat and caressing my increasing rotund stomach with the satisfied pride of a pregnant lady.
Life is good.
