Readers of the regular TONY blog will know that our office has not one lunch group but two. I belong to the group that calls itself the Fat Kids’ Table (FKT), meets on Wednesdays and eats processed, caloric and generally inadvisable foods such as microwaved chicken and marshmallows. Today we undertook to settle a debate very germane to Fat Kids (and their sympathizers): Who has the best wings in New York?

Our method was simple. Each member brought in ten wings; one nonvoting administrator transferred each batch to an anonymous, numbered plate; and the rest of us dug in and judged each wing by number. The contenders were as follows (in alphabetical order):

Atomic Wings
Dallas BBQ
Dinosaur BBQ
R.U.B.
Scruffy Duffy’s
Tobia (this is a K-Town joint advocated by art director Adam Fulrath, but we’re not sure we trust his spelling)
Nameless "hole-in-the-wall place" at 51st Street and Ninth Avenue (thanks go to online developer Matt Fitzgerald for his reporting vigilance)

A few caveats before we bring you the exciting results. You’ll observe from the selected eateries that we had a mix of buffalo-style hot wings and barbecue or other (read: Asian) flavors. We did not place any restrictions on entrants, other than that they be wings that used to belong to a chicken. (It should be noted, as well, that this idea came about when one FKT member brought Asian soy-and-sesame wings as his weekly contribution and was immediately mocked by another member, who viewed Asian-style wings as disgusting and unpatriotic. In this judging, it’s safe to say the K-Town entry had some xenophobia working against it.)

Each batch of wings was given a single score, 1–10. This was our lunch hour, remember, and no one wanted to concoct an insane, multidimensional scoring system that would require regression analysis (or even advanced arithmetic) to yield a winner.

Ranch and blue-cheese dressings were provided for dipping, as well as carrots and celery for palate cleansers. We were unable to convince our bosses that pitchers of Bud Light would be a good idea at 1pm on a Wednesday; otherwise, wing-eating conditions were fairly authentic. With that, the results…

Dinosaur BBQ: 6.75 points (WINNER!)
Atomic Wings: 6.09 points
R.U.B.: 5.7 points
Tobia: 5.08 points
Nameless "hole-in-the-wall place" at 51st Street and Ninth Avenue: 4.92 points
Scruffy Duffy’s: 4.54 points
Dallas BBQ: 4 points

As an addendum, Kids editor Katharine Rust was firmly convinced that her Scruffy Duffy’s wings would win hands down, and insisted afterward that she got a "bad batch." Fellow Scruffy’s loyalists are welcome to mount a write-in campaign in the comments area.

More photos below:

Winner, far right