Chili Cook Off

This weekend we headed to Bubba's (love that place although it's only our second time to go, as it's not that close to us) for their 6th annual Chili Cook Off.  Ironic that my first chili cook-off was not in sweet Texas but in Shanghai, China.  Crazy!  All-you-can-taste chili and a free beer and bacardi; they celebrate quite well here!  First chili stop, we asked if it was ok for kids to eat and he said, "Oh yeah, mine's the mildest around."  I don't know what he thought "mild" was but I'm pretty sure I looked like the cartoon character where the head shoots off like a smoke stack and you hear the train whistle.  I then grabbed Emily's taste cup but was not fast enough for Ella and Stephen.  Oddly Ella said nothing.  Stephen acted like he was gonna die if he didn't get water... and thankfully I signaled to Sammy to not give any to Eva as we had been standing in front of this man's booth who was proud of his "mild" chili.  It was actually delicious - just the spiciness caught me off guard.  Sammy and I continued tasting and I honestly don't think I've had that much spicy chili ever and by the 6th taste (wuss I know), I had to stop for fear that I would have, as one chili booth was called - Dragon's Breath.  On the other hand, Sammy was hoping he would not regret trying all 25-30 some chili booths before getting on a 13-hr flight to the US in several hours.  All in all, very fun.  It was mostly caucasians so it felt like home.  Speaking of Austin, Sammy met one owner of a restaurant who's chili was participating ... Sammy noticed his cap said Luckenback, TX and in chatting with him, found out he used to run Fado, and some other popular Austin restaurants (names escape me at the moment) several years ago and now lives in Shanghai!  Small world.

One chili booth who's name I liked!

The kids playing on the playground there  . . . Eva's head was not hurt in the taking of this picture.  (Although as I took this picture and saw it through the viewfinder, I was about to scream, "Watch her head!")

Hard to see, but the far left has a circle with a line through it, over a picture of a bowl of noodles and says "No Noodles".  Love it!