- [crowd cheering] - I'm at Brawler's back alley deli
in Buffalo, New York,
taking on the back alley barrel challenge.
- Once you actually see it, it's intimidating. - Damn!
Corn beef, salami, turkey.
[man] Every meat has, like, ten slices? Maybe more?
I have no clue.
[Casey] If I can finish this three-and-a-half pound
monster of a deli sandwich in less than 30 minutes.
You're getting into a lot of trouble.
85 percent have failed. You gotta knock it out.
I might just punch it off the plate.
[crowd chanting] You're a brawler.
I get a t-shirt, a certificate and my photo
on the wall of fame.
[man 1] He's gonna become a hero.
He's gotta think about all the glory
that he's about to have.
Bring it on, brawlers.
My fists are up. [whoops]
[all cheering]
[Casey] For years,
food's army has grown unchecked.
Oh, my God.
Bigger.
Wow.
Spicier.
[whoops]
[Casey] Bolder.
What is that?
But a hero rises.
That's tremendous.
Ready to taste the nation's most epic eats.
Uh.
[all cheering]
[Casey] I'm Casey Webb.
Yes!
Holding the banner of man
and armed with years of experience
in the restaurant industry.
[crowd chanting] Casey! Casey!
[Casey] I go into battle.
Bring out the steak!
[cheering]
[Casey] Food, your days are numbered.
It's gonna be a wild ride.
The mighty Casey has a taste for victory.
[whooping]
This is Man versus Food.
[boxing bell dings]
A sweet and savory soul journey
lands me in Buffalo, New York,
for a feast of flavored wings,
a Choco factory treat.
And a sandwich so tall, it practically defies gravity.
Buffalo, let's go!
Sitting south of Niagara falls lies humble and proud Buffalo.
New York's second largest city,
where good neighbors, historic architecture
and a raving sports scene are all easy to find.
For my first stop, I'm living like a local
where Sundays are for football
and wings are king.
When you think Buffalo,
you think wings.
That's why I'm at Dalmatia hotel.
A veritable wing wonderland
that's elevating this hometown classic
with some seriously adventurous flavors.
Opened by Croatian immigrants from the region of Dalmatia,
this riverside watering hole
has been around since the 1930's.
What was once a hotel for travelers,
is now this blue collar city's cozy neighborhood tradition.
You want a real taste of Buffalo?
This is the place to come.
[Casey] Many say the Buffalo wing was born in 1964
at near-by Anchor Bar,
cooking left-over chicken wings
in hot sauce as a late-night bite.
But at Dalmatia, the choices don't stop
at mild, medium, hot.
It got over 50 flavors to choose from.
50 and then some.
- Anywhere you go in Buffalo, it's just Buffalo sauce. - [Casey] Right.
[customer] We do three at a time
when we come here and then check 'em off.
So, how do you choose?
Just keep coming back.
[all laughing]
[Casey] With wings like, lavender and maple ranch,
you can kiss your comfort-zone good bye.
[customer] This is different.
[Casey] Would you order this again?
I'm going to order this again.
- Not, if I would, I'm going to. - [woman] Yes.
[Casey] But one flavor remains at the top
of the taste test list,
the nostalgic PB and J.
Tossed in a raspberry vinaigrette strawberry jam,
and drizzled with a honey peanut butter sauce.
It just seems to go so naturally.
It's not overly sweet.
- [woman] It's so good. - Cheers.
[Casey] I head to the back for a little deep-fried snack.
Hello, Theia.
Hi.
- How are you? - Good.
Thanks for having me.
You gotta tell me about Dalmatia hotel.
This place has been here
since a year before Prohibition.
That's probably a soda shop.
It was a soda shop, absolutely, yeah.
They were pouring a lot of soda pre-prohibition.
Did you inherit the wings?
[Theia] We decided to start developing recipes
and we just kept adding them and adding them
and adding them until we got to 57 flavors.
[Casey] So, what kind of wings are we making?
Peanut butter and jelly.
You want some wings? Yeah? [laughing] Okay, okay.
We started their special deep-fryer
which moves on a timer to ensure crispy consistency.
This is very exciting. I get to do it.
[beeps]
What?
After exactly 20 minutes, we shake off the excess oil.
And now, it's peanut butter jelly time.
We start with our butter.
And we go around the pan twice.
This is raspberry vinaigrette.
Put it around the pan twice, too.
[Casey] Next, we add strawberry jam,
jerk seasoning to offset the sweet
and a little more butter.
At last, my favorite part,
the epic toss.
[operatic music playing]
Oh, my. [laughs] Really getting up there.
And now, we gotta add the peanut butter.
Yes, we do.
[Casey] Theia combines creamy peanut butter,
coconut oil and honey.
Then we transfer it to a piping bag.
Are you a crunchy or creamy peanut butter person?
- Creamy. - Mmm.
- [mouthing] Crunchy. - Crunchy people are weird.
- [buzzer sound] - Oh.
- Just saying. - [laughing]
[Casey] And finally, peanut butter and jelly
are where they belong.
Together, on a chicken wing.
Does it bring you back to a butter time?
[Casey] It sure does.
This is the kind of crust you don't need trim off
the PB and J, right, you want this crust.
And the chicken is just so crispy.
The jam, there's so many more layers of jelly flavor
than I was expecting.
I've had a lot of peanut butter and jelly,
I've had a lot of wings, but those two never met.
And they met in your kitchen. This is so delicious.
Forget it.
These wings have me flying high,
but I still have a tower of a sandwich to topple.
[woman] This sandwich is huge.
I don't even think I could eat half of that.
Not even a quarter of it.
Back alley barrel sandwich?
Ha! It's gonna be a barrel of laughs!
[both laughing]
[Casey] I'm in Buffalo, New York
to duel with a daunting deli sandwich.
But before we brawl,
I got a golden ticket to the sweetest spot in town.
Buffalo has consistently ranked as one of the world's
top candy destinations, which is why
I'm at Fowler's chocolates.
A century-old seller of a unique Buffalo treat.
With beginnings as early as 1901,
Fowler's is a household name in Buffalo.
Serving as one the oldest
candy manufacturers in the city.
And what started as a small candy stand
is now a wonderous chocolate factory
with endless sweet treats.
So, how long have we been coming to Fowler's?
My whole life.
- Your whole life. - Yeah.
[woman] Top quality that you can count on.
An institution in Buffalo.
It's a tradition.
[Casey] So, there's no shortage
of Fowler's candy in your house?
At any given day, probably not.
[both laugh]
It's good chocolate.
[Casey] From the iconic Trufflaloes,
to the specialty ice-cream sundaes...
- Where does all the goodness end? - [all chuckling]
[Casey] It's easy to feel like a kid in a candy store.
But there's one confection
that represents Buffalo better than any,
sponge candy.
A light and crunchy chocolate covered toffee
believed to have been invented by Joseph Fowler himself
over a century ago.
When you think of Buffalo, you think of sponge.
When you think of sponge, you think of Fowler's.
[crunches]
- You can hear the crunch. - Look it.
It's crunchy, it's crispy, it breaks apart.
Have you ever seen sponge candy outside of Buffalo?
No one knows about it any place else.
- [crunches] - [woman groans]
Nothing better.
[Casey] I suit up and head to the factory to meet Ted,
a life-long Buffalonian
and owner of Fowler's chocolates.
We're gonna start making some sponge candy, Casey.
- You ready? - I'm totally ready.
What is this?
- This is corn syrup. - Okay.
Perfect for making candy because it stops the actual
sugar from crystallizing,
to give it, like, a smooth, hard surface.
In goes our corn syrup,
lots of sugar and a little water.
This thing's medieval, I like this.
[Ted] And you wanna, sort of, mix it all in,
so that it boils evenly.
[Casey] And we move it off the heat and add gelatin.
And as it mixes, it's gonna start steaming.
[Casey] Oh, yeah, it is steaming. Woah.
Like dragon's breath.
[Ted] Just gonna get it all to same consistency.
If it's not,
you'll end up with some hard candy bits
in the middle of your soft candy.
- And we don't want that. - We don't want that.
Next, we add baking soda which helps our mixture rise.
Feel like I'm paddling upstream, up the Niagara.
And t's actually rising as we speak.
Ted and I dump it into the form
to let it rise completely and cool overnight.
All the way over.
- Don't be-- - Woah.
There we go.
This is-- [laughing]
- You're not kidding. - Yeah.
It's definitely cooled down.
It looks like a giant creme brulee.
We got to make it into a bite-sized piece.
That takes a bunch of different cuts.
Don't crack the candy, Casey. Don't crack the candy.
- I did it. - [Ted] There we go.
[whoops]
And that's the stuff we wanna work with.
There's all this nice stuff on the inside.
Uh-oh.
Then, now, this edge.
[Casey] Closer you get to the center,
the more finer it gets and softer.
Really what it is, it's airier.
All the candy is the same consistency
except this has got some air pockets in it
that make it softer and easier to cut.
And this is essentially what we're looking for.
Can I eat it?
- No. - No.
Can't eat it.
We drop our pieces of sponge on the conveyer belt.
[Ted] We do about five to 600 pounds a day.
And there's about 50 pieces in a pound.
[Casey] Made by hand. A lot of sponge candy.
All sides are coated
by a tempered chocolate waterfall.
Wow! I can watch this all-day long.
And after making its way through
the cooling tunnel to solidify,
I pick my precious samples off the belt.
[Ted] There it is, the finished product.
[Casey] The chocolate is so creamy,
as soon as the sponge candy kicks in,
for me, it tastes like toasted marshmallow
covered in chocolate. But crunchy.
Really bursts in your mouth
and then, it melts in your mouth.
People do prefer just to let it dissolve
in their mouth from start to finish.
- That's an amazing idea, Ted. - Yeah.
That's so good, isn't it?
That's a different experience all to itself.
I might have had dessert before dinner.
But it hasn't spoiled my appetite.
[crowd chanting] Slam the ham!
Pop a cola, I'm gonna roll ya, yeah!
[all exclaiming]
Back alley barrel sandwich,
meet me out back.
Back.
I'm at Buffalo, New York, at Brawler's back alley deli
for the back alley barrel challenge.
If I can take down a colossal
three-and-a-half-pound deli sandwich,
I get a t-shirt, a certificate
and my photo on the wall of fame.
I'm not quittin' cold turkey.
I'm ready to go ham.
Located in one of downtown's most historic buildings
from 1841,
this traditional New York style Jewish deli
lies in an authentic speakeasy era basement.
Find the Brawler and you'll find
big Buffalo flavor.
- Food is important here in Buffalo. - [woman 1] Huge.
- [woman 2] It's all intertwined. - Yeah.
[both] Food and sports
and friends and family.
So this is kind of a central point.
- [woman 1] Oh, definitely. - For, like, everything else
- that's going around downtown. - Yeah. Place to be.
[Casey] From a classic turkey and ham melt,
to Buffalo's renowned beef on weck.
Is it anything like French dip?
Kind of. It's like an au jus.
And thinly sliced beef.
But I think the Buffalo style is the kimmelweck.
I think it gives it that certain taste,
that certain flare that just tastes like home.
Every sandwich place would have a beef on weck.
If they don't, they shouldn't be in Buffalo.
- [Casey] Right. Right. - [laughing]
But if you're not making your beef there,
roasting it, like they do here at Brawler's,
sorry.
[Casey] But I've got my eyes on a bigger sandwich,
the back alley barrel challenge.
Every meat on the menu stacked to the sky
with five different cheeses, lettuce, tomato,
coleslaw, three slices of rye bread and pickles.
Weighing in at over three-and-a-half pounds.
- Once you actually see it. - Yeah.
It's intimidating.
It's big, it's a lot of food.
I take layer at a time.
Treat each one as a separate meal.
[Casey] Should I harness the brawler?
[man] Don't dread it, conquer it.
[Casey] I love that.
You gotta knock it out.
- I might just punch it off the plate. - [boxing bell dings]
I'm ready to see this super-sammy in action.
Hey, Tom.
- How you doing? - I'm doing great.
So, are you a brawler?
No, I am Irish, but I'm not a brawler.
But I still go to battle once in a while.
This was considered the meanest square-mile
in Buffalo.
'Cause of the Erie canal ended here.
So, this was the biggest shipping port in the area.
- So, they brought-- - People got beat up here.
- They got beat up. - Okay.
The name Brawler's, kind of signifies that history.
Yes.
All right, so what am I getting into?
Getting into a lot of trouble.
[Casey] Well, how many people
have actually succeeded in doing this?
[Tom] 85 percent have failed.
[Casey] That's not good.
- That's not good at all. - No.
But I think you can do it.
All right, let's build this thing
'cause I'm getting hungry.
We begin with their specialty in-house roast beef.
[Tom] So, we start off with a top round
made specially for us.
- [Casey] Top round is a very lean cut of meat. - Yeah.
That's found closer to the leg of the cow.
We add salt, pepper,
garlic powder and rosemary.
[Tom] While that's in there,
- we'll get a nice coating on there. - [Casey] Yeah.
[Casey] We briefly roast our beef at 425.
And lower the temp for another two hours.
So, I put that right on a sandwich.
I just wanna sink my teeth into one of these.
Quite honestly.
- [machine whirring] - Just gonna put this on.
[Casey] Woah.
Like, paper thin.
Tom stacks our house made roast beef,
two slices of American and a turkey.
Next, cheddar, ham then, provolone.
We hit halfway with another daunting slice of rye.
[Tom] So, that's done.
- That's the first half. - Oh.
- First half. - First half.
First half.
[Casey] On goes capocollo, swiss, salami,
spicy pepper jack and corn beef.
[Tom] So, that's it for the meat.
- 30 ounce-- - 30 ounces of just meat.
[Tom] Just meat. Quite a bit.
[Casey] Finally, we cap our colossal sandwich
with lettuce, tomato
and a heaping pile of coleslaw.
- Friggin' massive. - [Tom] Yes.
You got that, Tom? You need a hand?
[Tom] Left the chainsaw at home.
Yikes.
[crowd cheering]
[crowd chanting] Man versus food! Man versus food!
Ah!
You have to eat everything that's on this tray.
And you get a half-hour.
Buffalo, are you ready?
[crowd cheering]
[crowd] Three, two, one,
go!
[crowd chanting] Man versus food!
[Casey] I begin the brawl with a clean fight.
[crowd cheering]
You know, you got corn beef, salami, turkey.
My stomach is simultaneously growling and also queasy.
[Casey] But all these different flavors
are throwing me off my game.
Every meat has, like, what, ten slices on them?
Maybe more? I have no clue.
[Casey] And my jaw's already struggling to keep up.
[crowd cheering]
[Casey] Will this barrel tip me towards my breaking-point?
[crowd chanting] Buffalo! Buffalo! Buffalo!
[Casey] I'm in Buffalo, at Brawler's back alley deli,
fighting their barrel sandwich challenge
with force and ferocity.
This sandwich is huge.
I don't even think I could eat half of that.
Not even a quarter of it. He's doing great.
[crowd chanting] Topple that tower!
Topple that tower!
All right, Casey, you're up to 15 minute point.
You're halfway there.
- [crowd cheering] - [man] Good going.
[crowd chanting] Halfway! Halfway! Halfway!
Ah!
[Casey] All this meat and cheese has me dreading
the next daunting tower.
But I remember what a fellow brawler once told me.
Don't dread it, conquer it.
"Don't dread it, conquer it." I love that.
I push forward and let that bread take a backseat.
My soul desires the delicious roast beef.
[Tom] You can put that right on a sandwich.
I just wanna sink my teeth into one of these.
Quite honestly.
[crowd chanting] Roast that beef!
[crowd cheering]
Winning takes dedication, it takes drive.
You're on the home-stretch. Get this done!
[all cheering]
[Casey] I make my way through the meats.
Pop a cola, I'm gonna roll ya.
Yeah!
[crowd chanting] Slam that ham! Slam the ham!
Slam that ham!
[Casey] And fight bite by bite with this leftover bread.
It's coming down to the bread. It's so close.
I know he can do it.
[crowd chanting] Almost there! Almost there!
[Casey] With five minutes left,
it's no longer a battle of time,
but one of will.
He's gonna have to dig real deep.
He's gonna become a hero.
He's gotta think about all the glory
that he's about to have
after he finishes these last couple of bites.
[crowd chanting] One more bite!
One more bite! One more bite!
[crowd clapping]
[Casey] With that, I barreled my way
to the finish line.
Yeah!
[crowd chanting] You're a brawler!
[crowd cheering]
[crowd clapping]
[Tom] All right, Casey, you pulled it off.
So, you can consider yourself a brawler.
I'm a brawler!
[crowd cheering]
Thank you, Buffalo. Thank you, Brawler's.
And I'm proud to see the battle of Man versus Food,
man won!
[crowd cheering]
[crowd chanting] MVF!
MVF! MVF!
[crowd cheering]