Draining the Sink

San Francisco Creamery knows a little about portion control. They serve one of the biggest commercially available sundaes in the civilized world.

This monstrous helping of dessert is called the Kitchen Sink - because it comes to your table served inside of one. No joke. If you can eat all the contents of the Sink by yourself, you get your meal for free and earn one free sundae every day for a year.

That's a generous prize. This must be a steep mountain to climb.

The menu bills it as a 2-gallon sundae. That might be a slight overstatement. Even so, it features 8 massive scoops of rock-solid ice cream and 8 rich toppings, adorned with nuts, cherries, and whipped cream. You must also break the standing time record to win the challenge.

Last Sunday was not my first rodeo. I attempted the Sink back in November 2009, but I was unable to break the 30 minute limit. It took me an agonizing 47 minutes, which was exactly where the record stood when I strolled into Walnut Creek last weekend.

So a little backstory: the first person to complete the challenge needed nearly two hours. The record has been progressively shorter since. TV viewers will remember that Adam Richman became finisher #5 and required over one hour to do it. He suffered toward the end. That's a lot of lactose!

Finisher #6 was a truly phenomenal eater. Ben Monson (who went on to eat professionally) annihilated the Kitchen Sink in an astounding sub-8 minutes. The staff didnt believe anyone could eclipse that record, so the time to beat was set at 30 minutes.

No one could even break 30, so after one year the time to beat was reset to one hour. Finisher #7 put the Sink away in 47 minutes, so that's where the record stood when I arrived.

For my part, I was a bit nervous going in. I was going to be interviewed by Donsturdy.com while taking the challenge, so I definitely needed to shine. I set a personal target of under 30 minutes, just to prove that the old record could be snapped.



I went with 8 solid flavors and non-liquid toppings, to avoid having any hard shells form over the ice cream. My choices were vanilla, chocolate, key lime, neopolitan, cookie dough, mango-strawberry, coffee, and strawberry. My toppings were restricted to fruit toppings, chocolate chips, and sprinkles. No gummy bears or marshmallows!

By the end, my mouth was frozen cold and my tongue was numb. 21 minutes? Unbelievable. But what about Ben's 7-something? Considering what this felt like, I developed a new respect for Ben's feat.


Ice cream is different. Around the 14 minute mark, it suddenly felt like I had this huge watery boulder in my stomach. It wasn't enough to stop me, but it was a strange sensation.

To quote a friend, I became the 8th person to "drain the sink." Whoever comes next will need to do it within 21 minutes. A few names come to mind... Stephanie Torres? Matt Stonie? Johnnie Excel? Randy Santel? Who will #9 be?

They're going to need a tolerance for lactose and sugar. For whatever reason I do very well with these types of foods.

I liked the green t-shirt they gave me to commemorate my win.

But the ice cream cake? That was a little too much.