Suki Sushi Challenge

There are a growing number of restaurants in the Sacramento area featuring eating challenges. If you like raw fish paired with rice, Suki Sushi might give you just the test you're looking for. 

The Suki Sushi Challenge is not complicated... put away 4 lbs of sushi rolls, a small miso soup, and a mandarin salad in less than an hour and your meal is on the house. They will also place your picture on their "Wall of Champions" inside the restaurant and on their website. The title of Suki Sushi Champion is, no doubt, a nice one for the collection. 

This was one of my favorite eating challenges of 2010. It was also among the easiest, coasting to victory in 30 minutes, but then again sushi is among my favorite things to consume. This was fresh food. So much better than the stuff I typically find at buffets.

They check your ID before you take the challenge, mostly to confirm that you are over the age of 18. You have to sign the standard legal waiver before they let you engorge yourself on fish. Although they encourage you to make a reservation, you may pretty much just walk in and order the challenge. That's what I did. You also get to choose from among several signature rolls so there is the spice of variety here.

Go north, my fellow eaters. Add more seafood to your diets.

Big Bowl of Pho

Johnnie Excel recently blew through the 4 lb Pho Challenge at the original Pho Garden location in a record 13 minutes. The challenge is offered at the various Pho Garden locations in the Bay Area. I had the pleasure of mastering this massive dish in March 2010 at the Mountain View location.

The bowl comes out boiling. You have one hour to wade through the hot, salty beef-base Vietnamese soup known as "pho." The challenge bowl comes packed: 2lbs of various cuts of meat, and 2 lbs of semi-transparent noodles. Luckily you don't need to drink the broth to win. Winners receive their meal free and get to keep the monumental bowl. It remains on my coffee table as a testament to my digestive system.

My thoughts on this challenge? It's one of the more interesting ones I've taken on, but more and more restaurants are trotting out their own versions of the pho challenge. At least it wasn't another burger or burrito.

The cuts of meat involved are not typical fare for the Western consumer. You'll find flank, tendon, cartilage pieces, meatballs, sirloin strips, and other chunks I can't readily describe. The noodles are straightforward. There's just too damn many of them. Imagine cooking two packs of spaghetti and downing them in one shot.

How did I feel afterward? Not full. These pho challenges have never pushed me to the limit. But, since they're loaded with 2 lbs of pasta, I'm in carb city and I know better than to slam a quart of ice cream in celebration. I remember sweating profusely after the challenge was done.

Just let it settle. The bowl is probably the "coolest" part of this challenge.

Chili Cheese Fries

It's hard to believe this blog has now reached 100 posts. This event was over 1 year in the making, but I've decided not to splash too much significance on it. I'm not even going to mention any special eating challenge or buffet run.

Chili cheese fries will be the topic of choice. Since my days in high school, this high-caloric concoction has qualified as my favorite article of junk food. Cheesy, salty, starchy, messy, greasy... these words all describe the dish I've always kept close to my stomach. I've eaten chili fries at various restaurants, and when I don't know what to get, they are my old reliable.

It would be awesome to find a chili cheese fries eating challenge.. but until then, just eating them for fun will have to do. Several years ago, I ventured to the Original Tommy's Hamburgers in Hacienda Heights with a few friends for a heavy midnight meal after work. Four orders of chili cheese fries.. easily 5 lbs of artery-clogging insanity.

The next week, when we only requested two orders of chili fries, the cashier asked if I was on a diet...

It was hard to explain.

The Legend of Hogzilla

Yucca Valley is home to an interesting restaurant that shares space with a Harley-Davidson Motorcycle dealership. The Route 62 Diner is open Monday through Saturday for breakfast and lunch. The interior was comfortable, there were a couple jukeboxes, and I noticed a fair amount of 1950s and 1960s memorabilia.

And for those who like their food extra large, Route 62 Diner offers the Hogzilla Burger Challenge for $16 (as of November 2009). That's a 2 lb patty with all the fixings on an oversized bun along with a basket of fries.  The motorcycle theme was cool - how often do you find a burger named after a bike?

The burger looked really good. It comes with a lot of vegetables. There's a few slices of American cheese hiding beneath the onion rings, tomatoes, and lettuce pieces. Just think of it as a salad on top of a huge meat slab.

After getting through the burger, I emptied the fry basket onto the plate. Anyone familiar with restaurant challenges will testify that this isn't a huge pile of fries. It was barely a half pound. I've probably eaten more fries at Jack in the Box or McDonalds. Unfortunately, these fries didn't impress. The burger was much fresher and fuller of flavor.

If you finish the combo inside of one hour, you'll get your picture on the wall and take home a t-shirt proclaiming your victory over the Hogzilla. My visit was back in November 2009, when a leisurely finish in 36 minutes was proclaimed a house record. The "shocked" manager told me I was the 16th successful person to tackle the Hogzilla.

Honestly, this place is a little remote. I wonder how many people have eaten the burger by now. Maybe someone's eaten two. Just rode in on their bike, chowed down, and roared off.

Yum Yum Diner

If you take the 215 freeway North through Riverside, you'll see a small restaurant off to the side as you pass the La Cadena Drive exit in Colton.

Yum Yum Diner. I liked the name. Reviews on Yelp seemed to do the place justice. It wasn't too far from a Denny's, so obviously they're doing one or two things right to stay in business. Prices are decent.

When I visited Yum Yum, something inspired to order a dish that never crossed my palate before. Liver and onions. Well, whatever else may be said, they certainly did a decent job of preparing it. The liver was strong, but it wasn't unbearable. Leaving it to the professionals this time around paid off. Don't remind me of the time I tried to cook beef kidney!

Making a Claim

 

 Some companies offer bold words. The La Pizza Loca chain claims that their 32-slice "La Gigante" is the world's largest delivered pizza. It says so right on the box.

 

It's definitely a sweet, saucy deal at $10. What's less certain is if the advertising rings true. Big Mama and Papa's Pizzeria in Hollywood offers both 36" round and 54"x54" square pizzas for delivery. Red Devil Pizza in Granada Hills offers up a 50" round. Those seem to be serious rivals for the world title. 

Well... they all make great food. I was just struck by the wording on the package. Maybe some committee of weights and measures will resolve this issue for us.

Sushi in the High Desert

  

Daikoku Japanese Steak House in Victorville offers an incredible promotion for all-you-can-eat sushi and hand rolls. Some people may object to eating raw fish so far from a water source... but you'd be missing out on a bargain. $12 for lunch, $15 for dinner. I ate 12 rolls and survived. The hardest part was exercising right afterward.

 Unfortunately, I wasn't able to sample everything on the menu. Yet.

Desperado Gang

That's a lot of food. This whole meal is called the Desperado Gang, and you'll find it in Marina Del Rey in a small, friendly eatery called Outlaws Bar & Grill.

Let's see what we have: 2 lbs of hamburger, a thick layer of chili, vegetables, custom bun, guacamole, and a plate of fries. Looking back, it doesn't seem like much, but this was also one of my earliest challenges. Probably in the neighborhood of 4.5-5 lbs, which is on the lower extreme of the eating challenges I take on these days. You have one hour to devour the mess for a free t-shirt and your picture on the wall of fame.

Greg "The Floss" Moss completed this challenge at one point, but I believe his venture came shortly after mine. It had been awhile since I had done anything like this, so naturally I wondered if I would come up short. The hostess had seated me across from the kitchen, and the taunts of the cook didn't help much: "Good luck buddy, there's no way in hell you can finish all that."

Well, I proved him wrong. Eventually. 45 minutes later. This was before I learned the art of pressure, so it was a good leisurely eat. It was actually a really flavorful meal, given all the different tastes, but I could have done without all that bread. The meat was a little crispy on the edges, but it's tough to complain when you get your beef in 32 oz slabs. Eat big and suffer for it.

As I left, the server told me about a really tall, bald guy who tried to eat two of these meals as his friends cheered him on.

She didn't have any names handy. I wonder who that could have been.