Precontest Staredown

I'm trying to figure out what these guys were saying. This photo was taken in the minutes before the 2011 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Qualifier in Hawthorne. It was a June morning.

Kevin Ross, left, and Matt Stonie are having a war of words. Kevin's staredown is awesome.

Maybe it was a trash-talk session.

Kevin: "This is my turf, and I'll be damned if some punk from upstate is going to walk away with the win."

What is Matt saying?

Leave your answers in the comments section below.

Red Devil

Some eating challenges are nearly as famous as the restaurants that offer them. Just think of the 72 oz steak challenge at the Big Texan in Amarillo. That promotion is larger than life. It's also claimed many souls. You have to stop for a second and remember that it is just a steakhouse with many sane culinary offerings.

It's not clear if Red Devil Pizza (in Granada Hills) rises to the same level of notoriety. Their 28" Belly Blaster pizza challenge is certainly notorious... advertised right in the store window with a large glowing neon sign. I'd say it is a locally famous challenge. The Wall of Shame inside the restaurant is absolutely overwhelming. It is no mean feat for two people to eat a 4-topping 28" pizza in 30 minutes or less.

The day of our challenge was interesting. First of all, it very nearly didn't happen. The person on duty said she couldn't make the huge 28" pizzas if the manager wasn't present. We explained that we had traveled a huge distance... finally light appeared at the end of the tunnel, and if we waited a few hours the manager would show and we could have our challenge.

Well, that was something. We killed time by bowling... conversation.... driving around Granada Hills. Three hours doesn't move along that easily!


When we arrived at the restaurant later that afternoon, the pizzas were coming out of the oven. We did the smart thing and paid for our food up front so we wouldn't need to waste time later. Victory would provide us with refunds, t-shirts, baseball caps, and gift certificates for more future pizza. You gotta have confidence in these things. Most teams fail horrendously, so the restaurant has a solid bet going.

But this wasn't supposed to be a gamble. This was a task we were prepared for.


Yeah, it's big.

We were making the challenge attempt in two separate teams. I was teaming with Stephen Obar, one of the new eaters I met in 2010. His previous eating experience includes becoming the third person out of thousands to successfully tackle Big John's Superburger at Big John's Cafe in Redondo Beach. He also made a valiant effort to take down the 8lb OMG Burger at The Catch in Anaheim. This man eats a lot! We nearly split this pizza down the middle. I've gotta invite him to some future eating events.

Our other team included Matt Stonie and an eater significantly faster than I. They were going for the restaurant record currently held by Damon Wells and Ben Monson... which then stood at 8:15.

They came incredibly close... finishing within mere seconds of a new record. Their time was somewhere around 8:20, which I still say is damn impressive. The current record for the pizza is held by Aaron Ybarra and Stephanie Torres, below the 8 minute mark. It's astounding what some of these competitors can do.

Our team finished in 23:12, which was all we were looking for. That was a hell of a lot of pizza. But, it tasted great. I liked the balance between firmness of crust, generosity of sauce, and density of toppings. If only I lived closer to Granada Hills, this place might be more than a challenge venue.


It's hard to complain about a good day.

The 20K Club

Insomnia strikes at inopportune moments sometimes. I figured I may as well do something productive.

This post is a reflection on the "20K Club," an informal competitive eating association borne of a Facebook conversation between Johnnie Excel and Matt Stonie regarding the feasibility of consuming 20,000 calories in one sitting.

That's a hell of a lot of calories to put down in one run. For the sake of perspective, 4 lbs of peanut butter would only get you to 11,000 calories.

Come to think of it, there's many of us who might have yet to enter the 10K Club. It's tough to say... but plates like the one pictured above might certainly help.

That's a heap of soft serve ice cream buried under five dense pieces of cheesecake. It reminds me of those ridiculously oversized dessert plates you would see on Ben Monson's bodybuilding.com page, though clearly Ben did it bigger.

You're gonna need to eat several of these plates to even remotely approach 20k. Maybe you could try candy bars - between 90 and 100 would take you to 20,000 calories.

The 20K Club has some rules in place that make the task even more daunting. For example, you can't simply eat large quantities of calorie-dense ingredients such as butter or mayonnaise to achieve high totals. You have to consume actual foods or ingredients assembled into legitimate dishes. Foods used must also be sourced from nutrition labels so that the calorie counts may be verified. And: the consumption must be captured on one continuous video clip for posterity.

That's complicated enough. And pretty straightforward.

There's many ways to enter the hallowed Hall of Fame (which is still barren). Do 11 lbs of animal crackers sound good to anyone?

Best Weekend Ever

My title might be exaggerating things. But just a little.


As far as food went, I can't complain about this past weekend. Returning to the Broken Yolk Cafe in Carlsbad, I managed to finish their Ironman Special in a personal record of 24 minutes(!). That's practically man-bites-dog news for me. My previous finishes clocked in at 60 and 55 minutes respectively - so, naturally, this was a special win for me. Cut my previous times in less than half.

Of course, this isn't all that much to brag about. I had the opportunity to personally watch Matt "MegaToad" Stonie polish off his plate in a mere seven minutes. That was incredible. And a restaurant record. I also can't compete with Ben Monson's unofficial finish of under 10 minutes. But, for me at least, this is some serious progress.


The next day, I joined Matt and his friend at La Casa Garcia in Anaheim. This time, we were hunting the 5 lb King Ranch Burrito. We told the server that we wanted "Three Kings," and the kitchen did not disappoint. This is an old foe for me. For Matt, a brand new challenge.

Matt was in thresher mode on this one... his finish at 4:17 was nothing short of amazing. Seriously, that's more than one pound per minute!

I was a lot more realistic. My aim was to get it done in less than 10 minutes, a target that was more-or-less set for me when a friend mentioned it on an eatfeats.com discussion thread.

Using a big spoon and the provided knife, I vanquished the King Ranch in 9 minutes and 40 seconds - no house record, but worlds away from my previous times of 45 and 21 minutes. Again, I cut my previous best in less than half.

I gotta see if I can press this newfound speed advantage into my future challenges.

And if you haven't already, you might want to check out some of Matt's videos on YouTube. Watching him "eat" (if you call it that!) is outta sight.