Chicken Fight Festival
Warning! If you are vegetarian or do not like chicken for some reason, then please avert your eyes from this article.
You have been warned.
Every year, Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado, hosts the annual Chicken Fight Food Festival where over 40 restaurants, breweries, and distilleries come together for a night of fun, live music, and chicken, a night that was so big that even the Colonel, himself, had to stop by.
While I would love to tell you that I was able to make it through all 40 of these stunning restaurants and their delicious version of fried chicken or chicken wings, I can’t, I would also love to tell you about the 32 places I did end up visiting in detail, but I don’t want this article to drag on for too long, so I will simply share the highlights of the evening.
Bao Brewhouse
My first bite of the festival also happened to be one of the most memorable, chicken wings coated in a sauce made with gochujang (Korean red chili paste) from Bao Brewhouse, a restaurant located in Downtown Denver that is made up of two floors: the bottom floor where you can find Chinese street food to pair with a rotating tap list and a tea room right above for a calming tea experience.
Not only were the fried wings that were served to us incredibly crispy but that sticky, flavorful gochujang sauce made them, as Colonel Sanders always says, finger-licking good. It’s who I voted for as my favorite wing of the night.
Also, some of the restaurants offered a unique cocktail to wash down all that chicken, and Bao’s happened to be a margarita made with a rice-distilled tequila, which was both refreshing and tasty. It was a perfect start to an incredibly filling night.
Guard and Grace
Up next, is a bite of food that blew my tastebuds away the moment I took a bite, a bite that could only come from a local prime steakhouse, Guard and Grace. That bite is what they described as Korean chicken delight, and that delight was a Korean fried chicken coated in a honey glaze and topped with an Asian-style slaw and pickled fresno peppers.
I have to be completely honest, this was the best fried chicken sandwich I had ever had. For me, it was that honey glaze that took it over the top and made it an explosion of flavor and sweetness to compliment that crackly, crispy chicken. It is a sandwich that I continue to think about as I write this article.
Tony Teneronis
Up next, we have two delectable bites of chicken tenders that both brought flavor with the duo of sauces they were served with that came from what is claimed to have some of the best tenders in town, Tony Tenderonis. For anyone unaware, chicken tenders are the tender strip of white meat tucked right under the breast, some say it's the best part of the whole chicken.
On top of the crispy bites of tenders that we were served, we were given a choice of two tequila-based sauces, one being a tequila barbecue sauce with lime and the other being a mango and habanero sauce with tequila. While the barbecue sauce certainly packed depth of flavor with that kick of tequila, I had to say that I liked the fruity, slightly spicy flavor of the mango sauce.
However, those tenders weren’t my favorite thing from Tony, that happened to be a unique cocktail that featured tequila and a vanilla foam on top. Before that night, I never even thought to combine tequila and vanilla, but apparently, it works, the floral flavor of the vanilla allowed the tequila flavor to shine even more.
It was my favorite cocktail of the evening.
CD’s Wings
Following those wonderful tenders and that cocktail, the next bite came from a local Colorado food truck, CD’s Wings, who bring their passion and integrity towards chicken for Denver, Aurora, and all surrounding towns to devour. Their bite was a take on a Tennessee classic, Nashville hot chicken wings over a bed of dill pickle ranch dressing.
Now, when I tell you that this was a hot wing, I am not kidding. As soon as I bit into the wing, my mouth immediately caught on fire and not even that ranch sauce was enough to extinguish it. The wings were flavorful and the ranch did have a nice dill flavor, but boy was it spicy.
GQUE BBQ
Up next, we have some wings from a barbecue restaurant that I recognized from the BBQ festival that I attended back in May, GQUE, with their championship barbecue that has won over the hearts and stomachs of Denver for years.
Their offering was unique in that it was a smoked chicken wing versus the various fried wings served at the festival and tossed in their signature barbecue sauce. I will say that it was a nice change of pace to have a smoked wing as this one was very tasty, it had a lot of deep smoke flavor plus that signature pink ring on the inside that is iconic for smoked food, and their sauce was sticky and flavorful, exactly what I expect from a chicken wing sauce.
The ROXY
Up next, we have even more wings from a vintage-modern restaurant and music venue that features classic 1920s cocktails as well as internationally sourced ingredients for their small plate bites, ROXY on Broadway.
These guys had two unique wings to offer, one being honey-ginger wings and the other a reverse buffalo wing that features wings coated in a ranch sauce powder and coated in buffalo sauce.
While I did enjoy the spiced ginger and sweet honey flavor of the first wings, the reverse buffalo wing were both inventive and tasty. That powdered ranch provided the tangy, herbal zing that we expect from ranch dressing and it paired wonderfully with that buffalo wing sauce.
Former Saint
I decided that this will be the last entry for the article as, again, I don’t want this to drag on for too long.
The final memorable bite of the night, and keep in mind that at this point I was feeling so full that I could swear that I was starting to turn into a chicken myself, came from a restaurant that features an adventuresome Colorado-inspired menu for locals and visitors of the mountain state to enjoy, Former Saint.
Their offering was a small take on a southern classic, chicken and waffles. If you have yet to experience this magical pairing, then you are missing out. Crispy, juicy chicken sitting on a fluffy waffle, it is one of the most indulgent open-face sandwiches that you can imagine, and the dish from Former Saint was just that good.
Although I did catch myself over-indulging in more chicken in one night than I’ve probably had all year, I could not have been happier that I went and got to experience such an incredible night.
