Okay, don’t get too excited. I didn’t cook anything, but I did taste a-plenty of good-ass-kicking & crazy unique chili + other yummy sides this past weekend.

This being San Francisco et al., I also saw a bikini-wearing dude who looks pretty damn hot.  And I mean that in the most literal sense because it was a pretty hot day.  I got sun burned. Boo-

Kidding aside, I think that having a blog to chronicle one’s interest(s) can have its advantages (and sometimes disadvantages).  For one, it tells your friends and family a lot about you and what you like to do, so they tend to cater to your whimsy, so to speak.   And what better way to indulge this fancy then with a lovely stroll through the beautiful Golden Gate Park to sample some fine chili at a cook-off?  A first in my book.  Yay! Thank you G for taking me to this lovely event.

This chili cook-off has happened every year since nine years ago….here are some pictures from this year’s event.

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And I am sorry to say that we didn’t stay for the entire event, thus we have no idea who won although we did VOTE!!! And we really hope the following teams get some mention because we thought their chili and/or side dishes/or desserts rock!  Big time!!!

In order of our preferences:

CHILI

• #6 Bitches Brew
• #12 Porkin’ Hot
• #8 Chili a la Cubano
• #2 Frisco Pig Chili
• #10 Meat Soup (with a dash of bourbon)

We had a lot of trouble deciding whether we will give #6 or #12 our numero uno vote.  They were both very well presented (#6 had a lot of add-on to flavor the chili just before serving while #12 had the slow cooker, a tent, and tons of “I’ve been Porked…” stickers), flavors of both chili were fantastic, and both put huge amount of effort into the cuts of meats.  In the end, we thought #6 Bitches Brew had a bit more of something to edge out our favorite until the end #12. Still, we had trouble with this decision and literally came down to a coin-toss.  G commented that he will eat #12’s chili with some rice or make it into a sandwich any day; so really, I don’t think they did badly at all.

We thought #8 and #2 were interesting.  The cubano chili reminded G about the Cubano sandwich, so it was good, but we kind of stuck with tradition and voted for more Americanized chili v. the alternatives.  The Frisco Pig Chili was interesting in that they made it more chili verde than traditional chili. Definitely tasty, but again, we stuck with tradition instead.  As for #10, Meat Soup’s bourbon chili, Wow, crazy cool. However, we thought that it would be better to have the tasters taste the actual chili before the dash of bourbon because the alcohol altered the taste of the chili. In fact, we tasted nothing but the bourbon in the chili, so it was hard to judge.  Since this isn’t a bourbon contest, we kind of had to rank this a bit lower than the others.  Aside from these 5 chili mentions, we also tasted others, but these are 5 that we preferred amongst all others though we think everyone did a fab job!

FAVORITE SIDE DISH

A las, we were too late in the game to try Chickin Fried Bacon, so it won’t be fair to vote for something we didn’t taste, no matter how tempting it sounded.  So our vote for best side dish will go to #22 Corn Bread.  I don’t think #22 really play second fiddle anyway because it was very delicious!  The corn bread was just the right amount of savory and had a lot of corn flavor. Definitely yummy & #1 in our book!

FAVORITE DESSERT(S)

Like the chili, we had a lot of trouble deciding on dessert.  So we are going to say we love both of these…

#50 Caramel, Walnut, Bacon Brownies (it’s got bacon in it, need I say more?? Okay, I will actually…it’s chewy, bacon-y, very good chocolate brownie…)

#45 Dirt (that’s right! it was great dirt, chocolately brownie with some condense milk, sweet, and chewy, so delicious and a very creative name!!!)

Overall, we thought that everyone did a fabulous job!  And we had a great time in the sun. Thank you so much!!!

October 9th | Golden Gate Park Chili Cook-off