3,000+ Calories in One Meal! 2009 2Q McDonald's Challenge

A few years ago, my bro and I started a tradition in the US where we walked into McDonald's, picked one item on the menu, and proceeded to out-eat the other person in a test of manhood.

We brought this happy tradition back to HK.  In January, we did McNuggets.  This past Saturday, we invited a few friends to join us and this time, we did the plain but wonderful HAMBURGER.

In my mind, there are athletes and then there are competitive eaters.  Ask me who I admire more -- a NFL quarterback or the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Champion -- and I would cast my vote for the weiner-eater any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  It comes as no surprise, then, that I have been a fan of Takeru Kobayashi for many many years.  (For those of you not familiar with the bizarre (but wonderful) world of competitive eating, Kobayashi is a 130lb. eating sensation from Nagano, Japan who has dominated the international competitive eating circuit for a number of years.)  "The Tsunami", as he is often called, can suck down 50+ hot dogs in 12 minutes.  The man is a competitor, hero, artist, and legend.  (If anyone knows Kobayashi, please recruit him to AnD.)

Anyway, I came up short in our Saturday contest.  My very good buddy, "B", beat me by one burger to take first place.  (To be honest, I think he could have done more but was kind of toying with the rest of the field.)  See below for the final tally!

I didnt' feel so good the rest of the day on Saturday but made a full recovery by Sunday afternoon.  In fact, for lunch on Sunday, I contemplated FatBurger but decided against it...why ruin the memory of 13 wonderful McDonald's burgers with the taste of a "gourmet" one?  I am, and always will be, a loyal and die-hard McDonald's fan.

Enjoy the photos!

DEZ


As with any contest, the rules:

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OFFICIAL RULES:

1. The time limit for this contest is 90 minutes. This contest is a test of consumption rather than speed/digestion.

2. For it to count, a burger must be consumed in its entirety (i.e., if you eat the whole burger minus one crumb, that burger does NOT count). You must eat a burger as is (e.g., you cannot take out the pickles) unless you have a note from a medical professional certifying a genuine medical allergy.

3. All food consumed must be kept down. You are disqualified if you throw up within 10 minutes of the last mouthful you swallow. The boot-and-rally is not allowed.

4. Burping and farting are permitted (and encouraged). You are personally liable to McDonald's for SHARTing accidents.

5. You can talk smack, make faces, and visually simulate puking to antagonize opponents. However, you CANNOT make noises (i.e., barffing sounds) to try to induce another person to vomit.

6. The winner eats for free (i.e., the final bill will be divided among the L-O-S-E-R-S).

7. The official contestant who eats the fewest burgers (i.e., you are the BIG LOSER) must go up to the counter at the end of the contest and buy a kids' Happy Meal after saying the following to the cashier (in English or Cantonese): "I am useless. A six-year old can eat more than me. Could I get a Happy Meal please?"

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A little pre-competition friendliness among competitors...me, D, and B. 



Lunch is served...



90 minutes starts...NOW!



Early on, I tried the double-fisting strategy...



A latecomer...wearing an AnD t-shirt!!!  It's Dan Tran, ladies and gentlemen!



AnD representing...



Some smack-talking, burger-sucking, and wrapper-auditing.




Dan started doing some weird dance to try and psyche out the competition.  As you can see, B is 100% focused and undistracted.



HOLY SMOKES!!!  More AnD representation with the arrival of Raffi!  Since he had had McNuggets the day before, he decided to have them again on this day, opting to spectate rather than abuse his stomach like the other four idiots.



Since D and I had done Chicken McNuggets in our last contest, it was only appropriate that we gave a shout-out to another fellow AnD artist who just did a campaign to promote McNuggets -- HOCC in the house!





The going started to get tough for me at around burger #7.  D felt the same way.  Dan, on the other hand, happily threw in the towel after burger #4 and opted for a chocolate shake instead.




B played a brilliant strategy right from the start.  Choosing not to engage in conversation, he wolfed down 12 burgers in the first 20 minutes, doubling every other contestant at that point.  For the next 70 minutes, he had the luxury of watching us sweat, cry, and complain.  This broke us mentally, especially when he popped two more burgers as "safety".  As the clock ran down, he knew he only needed to eat one burger to just stay ahead of the next closest eater.  To quote Hunt for Red October, this guy was one cool customer.



My strategy of hiding my wrappers in a brown paper bag to keep the competition from knowing how many burgers I'd consumed obviously didn't work.  (Notice how B chose to stack his wrappers for all to see, and in so doing, psyched out the competition).



Thumbs-up from the Raff-maester.



Our official photographer, fellow AnD artist Grace Huang, was a little less impressed (and perhaps slightly disturbed) by this point in the competition.



A post-competition photo.  To the winner -- 3 months' of bragging rights and burgers on the other three lame-Os.




Final tally:
B:14 (WINNER)

Me:13 (no points for second best)

D:12 (Den was a formidable opponent and would have tied me except his hands started to shake after burger #10 and he dropped what would have been the tying burger!    Oh, the heartache!)

Dan:4 (Dan, perhaps you should have opted for the Happy Meal?)

OK -- Dan did not eat the fewest burgers.  One other friend, "T", dropped out at the last moment under suspicious circumstances.  His count was 0 (yes, that's z-e-r-o).  That's just lame, man.



All in a days' work.  You're da bomb, Mickey D's!

Big question -- should this be an official AnD event next time?