Chili Cook-off

Today my dad and I headed to the Niles Hunter Ice Festival Chili Cook-Off. My appreciation for chili started at Wendys when I used to dip my french fries in my dad's chili, so it was a fitting thing for us to do together. Once we were inside the tent at the cook-off, my dad conned me into buying his admission ticket- then he almost backed out when he saw how small the chili tasting cups were. I told him to suck it up because he was getting in for free! Anyways, once inside, we found out that we had unlimited trips to each of the booths so it didn't matter how big the cups were!
There were 10 booths competing: Orchard Hills, Country Club, Howard-Ellis Schools, El Amigo Pepe, Riverfront Cafe, Pete's Patio, Ballard Schools, Wheatberry, Massimos, Wonderland Cafe, and the Chatterbox Cafe. All of these are from the Niles-Buchanan area.
My dad and I definitely had our fill of chili, and I ran into some friends I havent seen for awhile. All of the different chilis were great (except I didn't taste the one from Pete's Patio because it had mushrooms, yuck). I talked my dad into buying me a bottle of water as some of them were pretty hot. In the end, we both voted El Amigo Pepe has having the best chili. I also enjoyed their booth because they were giving out free shots of different flavored pop. Their chili was the spiciest, so these were definitley needed!
My second favorite was from the Wheatberry restaurant, but there were many other good chilis too. I tend to not like big chunks of tomato/onion/meat in my chili so these scored the lowest for me.
In the end, the chili from Howard-Ellis school won the People's Choice Award. It was a chili that featured pineapples and ginger. I think it won because it was the most different. I bet the actual restaurants that were competing were pretty upset that they got beat by some PTA lady!
After eating our fill, we walked around downtown Niles and looked at the ice sculptures. It was a fun afternoon!