Corona's Best

The above photo has nothing to do with the current post. Please excuse its presence here. I didn't have a picture of a cheesesteak handy,

This Saturday, an earthquake is shaping up in Corona, CA. The local Philly's Best is working with Johnnie Excel to set up a charity cheesesteak eating contest to benefit people living with MS. And that's cool. It's great to see competitive eaters giving back, and even greater to be a part of it.

Details are still hazy. What's in the offing, however, is the first big confrontation between Southern California's independent competitive eaters in 2012. Excel himself hasn't participated in a contest in months. His record of 7.5 steaks in 10 minutes is on the line.

Matt "Sweet Tooth" Cohen is looking to start the year strong after capturing Farrell's Ice Cream Eating Championship in 2011. Mary Bowers is looking to further her mark on the scene after debuting at the West Coast Hot Dog Eating Championship last year. Kevin Ross (with recent contest wins in wings and sushi) and "The Spicialist" are other possible contenders.

This will be my first short contest of 2012. I'm looking to use the opportunity to gauge my performance against Johnnie Excel. We clashed in 8 short-game contests last year, and Excel came out ahead every time. He's the only remaining independent eater in the area that I've never bested in a contest. So, there's a goal for 2012.

Earlier today, I also realized that Johnnie is one of the few eaters who doesn't have a nickname. I'd like to nominate the appelation "Iron Fist." Last year he had a lock (or damn strong claim) on virtually every contest he participated in. He's collected a lot of souls. Shattered a few dreams. Johnnie "Iron Fist" Excel has a certain ring to it.

On Saturday, will the "Iron Fist" swing high and crush the field? Or, will a veneer of rust allow a new cheesesteak champion to rise up?

Feeling Fab

Fab Hot Dogs is a restaurant with a strong local following. Located in Reseda, CA, they were famously featured on the TV food program "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" in 2009. The eatery actually sells T-shirts referencing Guy Fieri and the TV appearance.

I visited them in April 2011 in connection with a video project that hasn't yet materialized.

So.. Fab Hot Dogs maintains two Walls of Fame, one dedicated to customers who have sampled every item on the menu (in their lifetime), and another for the diner who holds the record for most hot dogs and buns consumed in a single 30-minute visit.  While eating everything on the menu in one visit seemed tempting, I was there to break the house hot dog record.

In 30 minutes, I pushed the record from 10.5 dogs and buns up to 15. It wasn't particularly difficult to put up such a number. The owner gave me the option of stopping at 11, since that would have secured the record and my spot on the wall. It seemed like a good idea to keep going since I still had time and room in my stomach.

How were the hot dogs? Well, delicious. Juicy. Flavorful. I don't eat hot dogs often so it's hard to describe their taste creatively! The dogs themselves were slightly bigger than a Nathan's competition frank. The buns were clearly larger and heavier than anything I'd run across in a contest. 15 hdbs at Fab probably equates to over 20 hdbs at a Nathan's contest.

Oh yes, I also received a T-shirt to commemorate my ascendancy as the new hot dog record holder. Its got a likeness of Guy Fieri's face on it and a really slick store logo. Hard to believe I have yet to see a single episode of his show.

There's Always A Catch

You can't read it, but the list of OMG Champions at The Catch is short. Unitary. The lone wolf is Tom Gilbert, a professional eater residing in Las Vegas. He's a quiet man, but he can eat like a freak. Two years ago that prowess garnered him a $500 payout.

Photo courtesy T-Vo facebook

This is what the 8 lb OMG burger looked like when I attempted it in the summer of 2009. It's certainly huge. Whoever puts it down deserves the prize. Tom earned good money for less than 30 minutes of work. Of course, Tom's victory was not without consequences. The Catch of Anaheim decided to limit who could be eligible for the cash prize.

In short, if you have any competitive eating experience whatsoever, you can't play. Maybe you completed a 4 lb burrito challenge at a restaurant across town. Or, maybe you won a 3 minute hot dog eating contest in San Diego. You won't be allowed to compete for the prize (they take your ID and google you). The logic isn't totally there. If I can eat 1/2 lb of hot dogs in 3 minutes, does that automatically mean I'm guaranteed to eat 8 lbs of hamburger in one hour?

Clearly, it's an attempt to protect the house. The OMG Challenge is actually a scam masquerading as a legitimate eating challenge. Anyone who stands a chance of actually finishing it isn't allowed to go for it. Ironically, serious eaters like Stephen Obar and Stephanie Torres have previously come up short against it.

On New Year's Eve, 2011, my friend "The Spicialist" decided to try his hand at the burger. After a long spell, the manager returned with his ID and determined he had participated in a 5-minute taco eating contest and was therefore voided from the $500 prize. Unfortunately the manager was rather rude and belligerent in his explanation of the facts. I didn't see the need for that. We weren't there to rob the place. We were there for a fun night. If we can't play, just say so kindly.




My friend was undeterred. We got a crowd here, it's New Year's Eve, so let's put on a show.. if he could finish the 8 lb burger in one hour, it would be free. No $500 prize, but an eating challenge nevertheless.

The burger that emerged from the kitchen was no 8 lb OMG. It was considerably larger, anywhere from 10 lbs on up. The Spicialist fought valiantly but he stopped after eating half in about 20 minutes. He proceeded to toast us with a bottle of Tabasco.




Well, it was still a fun night. The leftover burger tasted great but the service was lackluster overall. I couldn't believe how hard it was for our party to get water or have our drink orders serviced. The management clearly held a grudge against us over the challenge situation. Even Pho 87 didn't treat me so roughly. I won't be going back, and there's no "catch" to that.




You can count on a group of competitve eaters to have a good time, even in the midst of defeat. Friends, food, hot sauce, air hockey, arcade games, claw machines, and Dance Dance Revolution. What more could we ask for?

Happy New Year indeed.

A Challenge To-go

Photograph courtesy Matt Cohen

Everyone's telling me about it. Dine 909 tweeted it to me last Friday, Dax Swanson told me over Twitter this evening, and Matt Cohen messaged me the picture about it in the afternoon.
Visit any participating Togo's sandwich shop in Southern California and you can take on the Pounder Challenge. Eat a family sized pastrami sandwich in 30 minutes or less to win a limited edition T-shirt and a certificate of completion.

What you won't get, win or lose, is a refund. This sandwich will set you back $21.95. Still, it looks like fun for someone wanting to try their hand at a first challenge. It's probably no more than 3 or 3.5 lbs.

What strikes me is how rare it is to find a chain offering an eating challenge. What's next, a Monster Big Mac challenge at McDonald's?

Nobody Woks in San Diego

For some reason, the lyrics to that 80s song "Walking in LA" stuck in my head when I was thinking of writing this post. That's how I arrived at the cheesy title. Anyway, a couple weeks ago I began my 2012 eating challenge schedule with a stop in San Diego on 01/03. I'd be meeting Matt Cohen for an interesting lunch.

J-Wok is located in downtown San Diego. Parking in the area is difficult as usual. By difficult, I mean everything is metered or in paid lots or structures. The restaurant itself was incredibly crisp and clean inside. I think I would have eaten off the floor, but I wouldn't recommend it.

It's hard enough finding an eatery with one eating challenge. J-Wok has two on the menu. The first is the 5 lb Pad Thai Noodle challenge, then with only one previous finisher and a record time of 35 minutes. The second challenge is the Man Vs Wok Spicy Challenge, featuring 30 Thai chilies ground into a small bed of noodles. Eat it in 15 minutes and its on the house.

We decided to order both challenges at once. This was definitely a first. Our server was taken aback, but the request was no real problem. In about 30 minutes we were facing four large bowls of delicious food.



It was an interesting situation. Since we were ordering two challenges together, management was lenient and gave us a 75 minute time limit for both challenges. The more pressing question was deciding which bowl to start with - the big one, or the hot one? Matt and I decided to begin with the 5 lb challenge.

This was my first encounter with a Pad Thai dish. I liked it, though obviously eating 5 lbs of anything is not going to be pedestrian. I needed 15 minutes to get through it, utilizing plenty of fluids, which set a house record at the time.

Then it was on to the spicy challenge. This dish was something else entirely. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake ordering it. Each bite was incredibly hot, and it only increased in intensity. The 5 lbs of food in my stomach prevented me from moving at top speed.. it was torment for lunch.

Something in my head told me not to quit. So I fought. Every bite a battle, saturated with either soda or water. The back of my throat burned, my tongue throbbed, my eyes watered, my nostrils flared (you get the idea)... but somehow I couldn't stop. If I was about to die eating, Cohen was about to die laughing. The expressions on my face were beyond description and I couldn't see them.

And it was all over. The burning sensations were excruciating for several minutes afterward. After the fire finally subsided, the staff congratulated me on what they considered to be an impossible victory. No one had ever taken on both challenges back to back, let alone completed them. 2-0 was a good way to begin the year.

But, as they say, all glory is fleeting. The following week my time record on the 5 lb Pad Thai Challenge was broken by Kevin Ross. He only cut me down by 30 seconds, but no matter. Kevin's the new man to beat.

So how did I round out my evening in San Diego? With a little more phood. A search on Yelp turned up a pho eating challenge at a restaurant called Top 10 Oriental Restaurant. This eatery intrigued me immediately. The name struck me funny at first, but I was more impressed by the fact that this place served both sushi and pho. Those are two of my favorites.

The challenge here is called the Big Stomach Challenge. That's pretty straightforward. Completely consume a Super Pho Bowl, including the broth, in 30 minutes to win a spot on the Wall of Fame and a $5 gift card for next time.

The pho was really hot. You don't get you any cooling time before the clock starts, and since the bowl is filled to the top you really can't dump in much ice to help lower the temperature. I made it a leisurely meal, only burning myself as required. There might be a house record but I didn't ask. My bowl was empty in 20 minutes and I hobbled out of there.

It's too bad they didn't have a sushi challenge.

3 ft of Cheesy Hell

This is the 3 foot cheesesteak challenge from Hermosa Beach. It's sold at Big Mike's Subs for $30, and you get 30 minutes to devour it. Winners get a t-shirt, a mention on the wall of fame, and a gift certificate for $30.

It's no easy feat to eat this monstrosity. In fact, when I visited this place November 2010, I didn't manage to win this food fight. I had the last bite in my mouth at the 30th minute. The manager refused to call it. Oh well. I'll be back, and next time it won't be close. It's rare that I speak with such boldness but 2012 calls for new directions.

Finishers of the sandwich are elite company of the competitive eating world. Damon Wells and Ben Monson finished it prior to become Major League Eaters. Right after I failed it, Stephanie Torres finished it to become the third successful challenger. Elite company indeed. If I could eat hot dogs like any of them I'd make more of an impression.

So it goes. And next time I go, I'll be taking that grey t-shirt with me damnit.

Remembering Scott

It came as a shock to me two nights ago, when I read Scott Bickel's updated facebook status. I read it moments after he put it up. My eyes scanned the text carefully, but I knew well before I reached the end what was on his mind.

The first comments trickled in, people connected to him who couldn't believe the worst, who couldn't believe that the end of the road had come for such an energetic young man. Scott was known for hyperbole. Nevertheless, I felt inside me that it was serious. It wasn't poetic license.

My connection to Scott is tenuous at best. He rose to prominence in competitive eating circles last year, seemingly out of nowhere in such a short space of time. You couldn't miss his exploits. The guy was over the top, which I certainly admired. If people are going to criticize you anyway, it makes a certain amount of sense to give them the ammunition.

You gotta admire the bravado of someone who predicted he would defeat Patrick Bertoletti (one of the eating world's best) in a hot dog eating contest. The man influenced me much more than I realized. We shared only one conversation but I never forgot it. I will never forget him.

It seemed unreal, how much his death really affected me. Maybe it's because he was my brother's age, and it reminded me that you really can die any day. Maybe I'm not so young anymore myself.

Hog Attack

The Route 62 Diner in Yucca Valley, CA is home to one monstrous eating challenge: The Hogzilla Burger. In years past, the challenge was one huge 2 lb  patty. In 2011, the diner decided to switch the challenge into a "King of the Hill" patty tower. Devour a bigger tower than the previous champ and you're the winner.

Matt "Sweet Tooth" Cohen was the second champion under this format. He polished off a 9-patty burger and fries in 18 minutes, earning himself a t-shirt and a champion's poster on the wall. There's no time limit on this challenge but "Sweet Tooth" didn't dawdle.

Each patty weighs a quarter pound, thus Matt put down a 2.25 lb burger. I became the next champion (2.5 lbs) until I was dethroned by local eater John Rivera of Joshua Tree. We traded the title back and forth a few times, leading to a dramatic photo in the local newspaper.

Not sure why the Hi Desert Star News put this photo in the business section (I'm kidding - it was pretty far back), but it works. The photo was taken in October 2011, mere minutes before I tore into the burger, taking down a 15-patty burger to reclaim my spot at the top for the third time. John looked on as I finished my 3.75 lb burger with a side of fruit. No doubt he's hungry for another title. I'll be ready.

The diner is literally down the street from the school I work for. The posters of the first two challenge wins adorn my classroom walls, always leading to interesting comments from students and parents. For the most part, they want to know how I got into this and why I don't weigh 400 lbs.

So far I don't have a good answer. Maybe I should have studied biology instead of history.

Emptying the Garden of 15 Olives

What does an endless bowl of pasta look like? To be honest, I'd never seen one before. Neither had my friend. That brought us to Olive Garden last September. We needed to find out if such a thing existed. We were suspicious, because we'd heard that everything must come to an end at some time.

We dined for about two hours, running through a considerable gamut of conversation. My friend got through 6 plates and I cleared 15, to the amazement of the server.

Honestly, there's no way I can remember the names of all the different combinations I ordered. For fairness I tried to get a bit of everything. It seemed like a great deal all around.. how do you beat $9 for 15 bowls of restaurant-grade pasta?

So, why did I stop at 15? It's not an even number, or a lucky number. I wasn't stretched to the limit. But, I was facing a 2-hour drive home from Orange County and wanted to make it home comfortably. If I didn't relish the ability to drink water on the way home, I might have finished 4 or 5 more bowls.

Endless is a fancy term, but it still refers to a limited number. It's all relative. My endless capped off at 15, and it's nothing I'm going to complain about now. At least I didn't have to cook all those combinations of pasta!

7+ lb Bundle of Joy

It looks like a cake. That is, if you're familiar with cakes stuffed with rice and meat and wrapped in seaweed. The oversized musubi pictured above is known as the Stan-Musubi, named after the owner of Ola's Hawaiian BBQ in Fullerton.

The disclaimer I signed before taking the challenge in November 2011 listed the big musubi at over 7 lbs. It's got a ton of rice, which I usually don't handle well. Inside the rice you'll find chicken and beef. You get 35 minutes to eat your way to a free meal.

A group of us went together (names withheld to protect the guilty). It took the kitchen awhile to prepare all the food, but it was honestly delicious. This is a challenge that I'd do over if I could. Free food rocks, but awesome food is a step above.

From musubis, the night led us to a very non-food based situation complete with laughter and arm wrestling.

It's not clear to me how to follow up a story like arm wrestling. At least no one was seriously hurt.. a classmate from high school refused to arm wrestle me because of all the horror stories he heard associated with the activity. 

If you liked that video, watch out! Competitive Eaters Gone Wild Part II is in development.

Rolling Out 2012

It's 2012. With a great year behind me, it's time to start looking at what I'm going to do with competitive eating in the next 12 months.

There's much fewer available restaurant challenges in Southern California. My focus will shift toward raising the bar. There's a few extremely large challenges on the horizon (Fat Sal's in Westwood), as well as some places where I'd like to try double-challenge portions.

On the contest horizon, I plan to help Chick Fil-A of La Habra promote their nugget eating contests and participate selectively in a few other local events. I'm also looking into the possibility of tying charity work to competitive eating.

I'll be doing more work with Wreckless Eating as well. I'm joining their cast as a regular member. Matt Zion and company have a few ideas for raising the bar on mass consumption, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. There will also be more videos produced for my own YouTube channel, mostly challenge documentation and other short concept clips.



As far as this blog goes, there's plenty of old (and new) challenges to write about. In this New Year, a trip down to San Diego has yielded four wins and I'll write about them shortly.