Burritos in Bakersfield

La Mina Mexican Restaurant is a small restaurant chain located in Bakersfield. They have 6 locations last I checked. Some of these locations offer a burrito eating challenge. It's a good stopping point when you're visiting family in Northern California.

They feature the Arturo Grande Burrito, priced in June 2010 at $11.99 each. It's the biggest burrito on their menu. If a diner puts down two in one hour, they get a refund. If they can eat three, they eat for free and take home a $50 prize.


They look delicious. You get your choice of meat... I've learned to go with chicken because it seems to be the lightest. Their carne asada comes in thick chunks, and if you select ground beef they really load down your burritos with huge portions.

And that's where the difficulty of the challenge arises. The burritos really don't come in set sizes. I've taken the challenge three times, and every time the burritos have looked different. I've never failed this challenge. I also never took home the $50 prize. Getting past that second serving is hell.

Each burrito, filled with beans, meat, loads of rice, lettuce and tomato, must weigh in at 4-5 lbs. The staff couldn't even offer me a range. They remind me of the King Ranch Burrito at La Casa Garcia in Anaheim, though these pack much more rice.


Every challenge has gone differently. The pictured burritos were cleared in 33 minutes. That was my most impressive finish.

The third time I took this challenge resulted in a near-failure, because the kitchen decided to really stuff the burritos with rice and douse them in sauce.

The picture may not do it justice, but this burrito was significantly plumper than the ones above. Exploding with rice. Lots of beans too. I needed 58 minutes to clear both burritos it day. Almost didn't happen! It also didn't help that they refused to bring both burritos out at once.

My suggestion? Bring a scale. Someone needs to find out how much they're shoveling down on this one. The bet totally favors the house. At the Oak St. location they told me that I was the second and third successful finisher as of June 2010.

Now do I hear any takers for the $50 note?

Local Competiton

Matt Stonie and I have this ongoing conversation about the relative value of buffets. He thinks I should avoid Hometown Buffet. When a new Asian buffet recently opened in Colton, I decided to take the Megatoad's advice.

This place is a bit on the small side physically. Given the local restaurant scene, they have their work cut out for them. Located off the Washington St-Mt Vernon Ave exit on the 215 freeway, they're smack dab in the middle of about 20 fast-food joints, sit-down establishments, Starbucks Coffee, Walmart, and about a block away from an established all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant.

Three miles east in San Bernardino you'll hit Hospitality Lane, where you'll see about 35 restaurants including the infamous King Buffet. Buffet Star needs to make an impression around here.

I spent about an hour dining here. My visit occurred on the first Saturday they were in operation, two days after their grand opening on March 24. Weekend meals are priced at $10.95, weekday lunch is $6.95, and weekday dinners run $9.95. Given the neighborhood, the prices seem reasonable.

As per my typical habit at Asian buffets, I started with sushi.


This was better than I expected. Most $10-12 buffets that I've frequented don't put out much raw fish. They typically dole out mostly California rolls, but here they were rolling out tuna and salmon in addition to imitation crab. They were fresh too. As far as value went, this was probably my best sushi haul since discovering Daikoku Japanese Steak House in Victorville with its $15 all-you-can-eat sushi roll special.

The Caterpillar Rolls were excellent. The nigiri was very fresh. Some of the sashimi strips more closely resembled large insects than pieces of sushi. Their wasabi was nice and strong. The avocado was plentiful.


A crowded plate with some 24 pieces. They were large portions.


At this point, the sushi chef noticed that I had been to the serving station several times. He wanted to make sure I liked the food! Well, I was honest.


The salt-and-pepper shrimp was a bit greasy but well done.

And more.


The egg roll, sesame balls, and cream cheese wantons were all fresh. There's also one piece of nigiri on this plate. Couldn't resist one final raw parting gift.


The requisite fruit plate. Watermelon was my favorite selection.


My evil sugar habit finally asserts itself. Coconut macaroons, chocolate pudding, banana creme pudding, brownie, and cake square. "Sweet Tooth" would have been proud of this plate - and the two following.

Instead of the standard soft serve machine, this place has a deep freezer with huge canisters of real ice cream and serving scoops. I appreciated the difference.


No better way to end a meal than with 8 scoops of ice cream, a pile of cookies, a brownie, and vanilla pudding. Those last two plates were awesome.

Honestly, I had no idea no much I'd eaten at that point. Buffets should install scales at their tables. Sometimes it's best to play it safe, so I stopped here and finished my glass of water.

This place needs to stick around. It's got some good stuff. All 11 plates' worth.

Matt was right... avoiding the $5 breakfast paid off big time.

Difficult Presentation

Sometimes, it's hard to make things look right. This is the Triple Kingburger Challenge from Fatburger in Rancho Cucamonga. Got it a couple weeks back. I didn't like the way it looked when it came to my table. It resembled a culinary mess...


Wow. It didn't matter much which angle you looked at it. Taking off the wrapper may have made it worse. Flatter. Well.... maybe it isn't easy to take 24 oz of beef and make an appealing tower from it, but I've seen better examples before.

At least the taste was just as I remembered.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

While most of my posts are related to enormous meals and portions, I've recently begun to think of a different idea. Would it be possible to find a level of constant high consumption that might be stretched out throughout a whole day, to achieve caloric saturation without the usual feelings that result from buffets and challenges?

To be brutally honest: yes. There are plenty of athletes who maintain daily routines of 6000-12,000 calories. They don't seem to suffer distended guts too often.

Just a lot less intense - trading space for time.

Big Mike's Burger

If you're ever in Bellflower, you might check out Big Mike's restaurant. They apparently deliver. I caught a glimpse of this truck after I tucked my car away in the rear parking lot off the street.


No photos of the restaurant front.. lots of the guys who ran into me didn't look too friendly, and I would have had a tough time convincing them that the use of my cell phone camera was completely kosher. Some guys don't like having their picture taken.

It's a nice place to eat in the midst of a rough neighborhood. Go there! They serve the Big Mike Burger, decked out with 2 lbs of ground beef and a hot link. Big Mike owns the place and actually took my order. He was really friendly and courteous. I got mine without the hot link, and he even knocked a couple bucks off the price tag. That was cool.


The combo, with fries and a drink, went for $9. It was a good meal. You actually watch them cook it on a huge griddle. And it isn't fast food, either. The two patties took a solid 10-12 minutes to prepare.

As a final note, I found something admirable about the inclusion of store-brand ketchup as a condiment.

Their food was tasty. They don't need Heinz.

Day of Defeat, Part One

36" of pizza, one topping, one hour. Big Mama and Papa's Pizzeria in Hollywood, CA offers a hefty challenge to two brave souls up to the task. $200 on the line for the winners.

This was totally unplanned. Spur of the moment. Spontaneity in action. After watching the "Gang of Four" (Torres, Stonie, Gilbert, Excel) battle the Grand Sicilian 54" x 54" pizza for 75 minutes, Aaron Ybarra and I felt the urge to participate. Perhaps it stemmed from revenge for what had happened to the previous team.

[The next post will be dedicated to the effort they made against the 54" x 54" pizza. It's a longer story, I've got a few reflections to make, and I don't make to leave anything out simply because of space concerns]

In terms of surface area, a 36" pizza is equal to roughly two 25" pizzas. Weight is, of course, a whole other matter. This would not be a simple task. Then again, it's not often that you find a restaurant willing to shell out $200 on a challenge.

The pizza came out scalding. After appropriate cooling time, we dug in. Toppings were split down the middle, one-half with black olives and one-half with tomatoes. Olives appeared to be a terrible choice, because the cooks really piled them on. The sodium factor was appreciable too. I liked the parts with tomato much more.

Aaron shot out the gate, per his style. I ate in much more paced fashion, but faster than my regular rate. This was probably a mistake. Going faster usually causes me to feel full earlier, but it's an acceptable strategy if you can finish the challenge item under 20 minutes.


This thing was just too damn huge. I managed to take my half, but Aaron hit capacity several minutes early and our chances were basically written off. I knew there was no way I could take the 3-4 pieces my partner left behind in the remaining minutes. Aaron ran out of room, but I ran out of time.

The manager taunted us by throwing the prize money on the table during the challenge. He even doubled it in the last ten minutes, but I gave off my bluntest comment of the night: "You could put $20K on the table, this isn't gonna make us go any faster."

Well... back to the drawing board! It was incredible to team up with Aaron again, hopefully we get another chance to eat on the same side again one day.

All that salt!! My mouth felt burned afterward. I guess we were all a little burned that day.

Gone Fishin'

Fishing is a frustrating activity. You do what you're supposed to do, but the surroundings don't always cooperate with you. Golf and bowling feel the same way at times. Not that I've ever golfed or fished. It's just an anecdote I remember from a bowling teacher at Cypress College.

Eating challenges have their moments too. Matt "Sweet Tooth" Cohen struck gold today, completing the Great White Whale Challenge at the Shakespeare Pub and Grille in San Diego. "Sweet Tooth" only needed 28 minutes to tear through 2 lbs of battered cod, 2 lbs of chips (french fries for the Americans), and a side of peas.

It's an even bigger accomplishment when you consider that the plate comes out scalding hot and they don't give you cooling time before starting the clock. You get a maximum of 45 minutes.

Perseverance pays off. Matt received his meal on the house and scored a cool t-shirt. And I'm sure it won't be long before he moves on to his next big win.

I know the nickname is easily overused, but there's no better way to sum this whole thing up.

Sweet....

A Splash of New

It's a crisp citrus soda.. even reminds me a bit of lemonade.

Will it crush the competition, or fade away after a brief surge?

Big D's Pizza

Sometimes life is a series of random circumstances. A coworker looked up the website for a small pizza parlor in San Dimas and inadvertently discovered that they had an eating challenge.

My reputation for doing this stuff is not a secret. I called for details and learned that this challenge was as-of-yet undefeated. That added a bit of incentive. It was probably high-difficulty.


It's simple, really: eat one of their large 20x20 square pizzas in 45 minutes and it's free ($20-25 if you lose). Winners also get their name on a plaque and take home a free t-shirt. When I walked in Friday night, the plaque didn't exist yet.

Mathematically, a 20x20 square pizza works out to 400 square inches, or slightly bigger than a 22.5" round pizza. That's huge. Typically, solo pizza challenges don't run bigger than 18" or 20".

But surface area is one thing, and weight is another. I was told this was a 6-7 lb pizza (all depending on whom I asked in the restaurant), of which 4 lbs were just dough. Given my past experiences, I knew it would be close.

Breads and other starches aren't my friends. This pizza boasted a thick crust.


It needed several minutes to cool. 45 minutes would pass quickly, so I decided to go as fast as I could in the beginning.

Doughy.... chewy.... I worked my way around the entire crust to eliminate the largest, breadiest section of the pizza first. About 15-16 minutes in it was more than half gone.

Then, predictably, things slowed down. The staff was convinced at this point that I could be their first winner, but they didn't feel that way when I first showed up. Admissions didn't come til later.

But... it was still a haul. Every remaining piece was a tedious, dry-mouth fight. Lots of chewing. Lots of water. Tension.

My colleague encouraged me to finish the last few pieces while Devo's "Whip It" was still playing over the sound system, but it wasn't happening. The cheese was now like asphalt.

Still, I appreciated the 80s soundtrack that accompanied me through my food fight.


All clear at 42 minutes. And dehydrated. Lots of water would follow those 24 squares of pizza.

It was a fun evening all around. This challenge just needs a little more publicity... I'm sure they'll be getting more takers (and winners) in the near future. Definitely not for the faint-hearted. There were doubts swirling in my mind (and stomach) at the end.

The proof is in the pictures.

That's the Thing

The open road is boring repetitiveness after awhile. Like those madly repeating backgrounds from old cartoons. A visual song on infinite loop.

That's why enterprising people set up tourist traps. They catch suckers driving along these lonely highways.


The Thing is a famous stop near Tucson, AZ. It's a mixture of gift shop and mystery museum affixed to a Dairy Queen restaurant. Pure genius. The weary traveler's money pit. A little curiosity in the middle of nowhere.

Signs along both directions of the I-10 warn you to stop and see "The Thing."

I won't spoil the mystery involved. It was a special memory from a trip taken with family several years ago. My recent stop in 2011 was total nostalgia.

Warnings and beckonings persist for hundreds of miles on the freeway. You're primed to stop and see this place.


The thing is... there's nothing else there!

The Knife's Edge

The closest finishes are the most cruel.

Matt "Sweet Tooth" Cohen nearly went the distance against the Daddy-O's Big One Combo challenge in San Diego. That's a 2 lb burger on a mammoth bun, with a large side of cheese fries, and a milkshake.

You get 45 minutes. "Sweet Tooth" plowed through the burger and lived up to his confectioner's moniker by annihilating the milkshake. About half of the fries separated him from victory.

This is still a "sweet" accomplishment. Matt has seen his capacity, endurance, and recovery time improve rapidly as of late. This 6 lb meal is no laughing matter.

As an eater, Matt is best known for his short-sprint victories. Think back to the Jose's Flautas qualifier in 2009, when he slammed 21 flautas in 4 minutes to go the finals. He's steadily transforming into a long-distance, high-capacity man.

Just a razor's edge away...