Super Bowl of Pho

A small restaurant in Alhambra offers a pho eating challenge. Of course, you must know about it going in. There's no mention of it anywhere inside the place. It's not on the menu. It's not the wall. I bet regular customers don't even have a damn clue about it. Ask, and ye shall receive. I knew about it because of a listing on eatfeats.

It's not your standard pho challenge, but it's fair. You have one hour to entirely consume three large bowls of piping hot Vietnamese soup.. that's beef, noodles, broth, and all. It's about $25 if you fail. I used ice water to cool it down, but in the end the toughest part is drinking all the salty broth. At least I wasn't dehydrated afterward. No cameras followed me, but I think a few people would get a kick out of seeing me drink some of the broth through a straw.

When I finished, the server came over and expressed a bit of dismay. He wanted to know how I managed to finish under 30 minutes, when all of the previous winners needed just under an hour. I didn't have an answer. Maybe I pushed myself a bit harder than they did.

The size of this challenge is not overwhelming in any case. An hour later, I managed to eat a meal at In-N-Out while visiting relatives nearby. If you like pho, give this place a try. Their vanilla pudding wasn't bad either. Don't expect to see any writing on the wall.

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.