Is Orange Buffalo the yee-to-your-haw or the Snake in your Basket?

We need to talk about the Snake in a Basket from Orange Buffalo. To celebrate the launch of their first ever brick and mortar joint in Tooting, we went along to sample some of their menu.

The new restaurant is set out like a typical wing shop, where you order, pick up at the counter and then head upstairs to grab a seat. When we wandered up we bumped into some friends of ours who decided to take on the Snake in a Basket challenge. A ‘fun’ game of wing roulette, you choose seven Original or Woof Woof wings, which are then tossed into a basket with one hidden Viper. The Viper is one of those wings so hot you’ve got to be over 16 to eat them and you have to sign a waiver. Everything about this said danger but we went for it anyway.

It didn’t take long for someone to get the Viper. This bad boy is so hot it makes all the other wings around it 10x hotter. This wing so hot if you ate it in winter you could go outside without a coat on, so hot every other hot thing in the world suddenly tastes like plain white bread.

Literally nobody on the table could handle more than a tiny bite. Tasting sort of like what an entire spice cupboard smells like, the heat slowly creeps up on you until the burn is all you can feel. Orange Buffalo have Mini Milk ice-creams on hand to give to people who take on the challenge of the Viper, and one dude had four in his mouth AT THE SAME TIME and was still crying.

If you aren’t a massive spice head who’s addicted to pain, we’d recommend eating your meal BEFORE trying the Viper. You can’t really taste anything for a while after and Orange Buffalo have a whole menu of delicious buffalo-style wings that won’t burn your socks off, so definitely get around those first.

We both got a mix of Original, based on the American classic and made with Dutch chillies, and K-Town, made with gochujang paste, soy, honey and sesame seeds, served with blue cheese sauce and celery sticks. Rated a medium heat and medium hot respectively, these wings packed an amazing punch of flavour, balanced out with a good amount of heat to warm you up but not have your nose and eyes running. Balancing spiciness with sweetness is always a winner in our books, and these saucy boys have definitely got us hooked. We also had a side of curly fries, seasoned again to perfection, and we’ll definitely be back to try the Cheesy Buffalo Fries sometime soon.

Veggie friends are welcome here as well, with some moreish looking cauliflower wings on the menu. If you’re keen to give these amazing wings a try and dare your friends to take the Snake in a Basket challenge with you, you can visit Orange Buffalo at their Shoreditch and Hoxton stalls, or their new restaurant at 46 Mitcham Road, SW17 9NA.