Years from now we will look upon fall of 2010 as the golden age of MB&B eating challenges. We do them more frequently now, but it will be hard to top the epic back-to-back combination of the Taco Bell Draft and McDonald's Survivor.
We were inspired by this video of four people drafting items off the menu of Taco Bell. While they seemed to do a fairly limited set of items, we had ten competitors, so we literally drafted every item (including all the permutations of nacho cheese/meat/chalupa/gordita, etc). By random selection, I had the first pick and made the obvious choice: cinnamon twists. Not only smaller than all the other items, but possibly the only item on the menu that tasted different.
The draft continued for all ninety spots. At the time, Taco Bell only had eighty-six items, so we had four wild cards - if you picked one of those you were assigned an item at random. Jared was first to choose a wild card and was stuck with some sort of beefy cheesy burrito thing, scaring everyone off. The last round was a showcase of horribleness - Chicken Ranch Taco salad, Chipotle Steak Taco Salad, Express Taco Salad, and the dreaded Fiesta Taco Salad. Salads at Taco Bell consist of a fried tostada shell filled with pools of meat and beans barely concealed under a few shreds of lettuce. Somehow, with the last pick of the draft I was spared all those and was left with the Volcano Nachos, which were higher in calories but delicious.
It's not clear what Dan was doing during the draft (he's the tall red bar); perhaps he couldn't override his natural instinct to maximize calories. After we divided up and went to three area Taco Bells, we came back to the conference room with our spoils.
We learned all about the meat sweats that night, as well as meatmares, meat shakes, and of course I learned all about meatpeating. I managed to finish my food before I did though. Here I am midway, trying to put down one of several chalupas while listening to "All I Do Is Win":
Six of us finished our drafted food: VJ, Dan, Jared, Trexler, Rob, and me. Observe the blue bars of shame (uneaten food):
We then entered overtime, where each person redrafted an uneaten item. Only VJ and Dan finished the first round of overtime. In round two, VJ successfully ate a large burrito, while Dan tried to induce meatpeating in VJ by opening a packet of ranch dressing and drinking it directly. That strategy was unsuccessful, and Dan became the third person to be eliminated by the Chipotle Ranch Salad, leaving VJ as the victor. A strong start to his career, but other challenges lay ahead...
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Sushi Palace
Rumors are there was some other eating challenge in July, but Dan will have to post on that. The next one I remember was July 13, 2010, at Sushi Palace. Simple rules again: whoever eats the most pieces of sushi wins.
Sushi Palace is capable of taking reservations, but sadly they can't hold reservations. We waited for over an hour for a table, which cut into our sushi eating time. Several competitors got off to a fast start though, with Jared slightly ahead early on. For some reason Jon got a hold of the ordering, and refused to order all the white tuna that Rob wanted. (Was he working for Jared? We'll never know.) Eventually Rob threatened to stab him in the neck if he did not order more white tuna. Meanwhile Jared continued to mow down the sushi, and though Dan and Trexler put up good fights, he was tops with 57 pieces.
The standings as I remember them:
Jared 57
Dan 52 or so
Trexler and Rob around 50
Jon 45 or so
Dave 20-something and then started to eat beef teriyaki
Jeff 6 and a couple hours on the phone
I'll update the totals as people with better memories (or who feel slighted by my guesses about their total) chime in.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Percent Body Weight Gained at Sitar
After a several-month hiatus, the next challenge took place on February 17, 2009. We didn't want to do the same style of eating competition each time, so for our third event we changed up the rules. We had lab lunch at Sitar, an Indian restaurant with a good lunch buffet. We weighed in at lab before and after, and whoever gained the highest percent of their body weight won it all.
Final results:
Ian 3.1378%
Dan 2.8090%
Vipender 2.6367%
Thanh 2.3483%
Jared 2.2857%
Dave 2.1972%
Phil 2.0579%
Katie 1.7452%
The extra significant figures are an intentional homage to the idiocy of Biggest Loser. Sadly, they did not provide the margin of victory as Ian won handily. Here he is celebrating:
Final results:
Ian 3.1378%
Dan 2.8090%
Vipender 2.6367%
Thanh 2.3483%
Jared 2.2857%
Dave 2.1972%
Phil 2.0579%
Katie 1.7452%
The extra significant figures are an intentional homage to the idiocy of Biggest Loser. Sadly, they did not provide the margin of victory as Ian won handily. Here he is celebrating:
Monday, June 27, 2011
Most Wings at Buffalo Wild Wings
The second eating challenge may still be the most controversial of all time (mostly because I'm still pissed about it). Buffalo Wild Wings has all-you-can-eat wings during Monday Night Football, so on November 24, two months after corn dogs, we got a big group together to eat as many as possible. Simple rules again: whoever eats the most wings wins. The service was horrible, and we had big gaps between finishing a set of wings and getting our next set. Dan ended up on top with just 42 wings, and to get even that high he had to scavenge wings from other people as they dropped out. There are no pictures from that night's event, so I leave you simply with an accurate portrayal of the evening in the form of a video: http://mcooki.es/64822.
Friday, June 17, 2011
How It All Got Started - Corndogs
September 8, 2008, at 7 PM, a group of us gathered in Thanh's apartment. I'm not sure exactly how it started, but I think Dan and Trexler had been debating how many corn dogs they each could eat. This led to the infamous guarantee by Trexler that if he couldn't eat twelve he would come to work the next day wearing a skirt. He made it to twelve, but finished second to Jared with thirteen corn dogs to win the first eating challenge. This remains one of the most painful challenges, and we ate far less food that night than in most or all of the comparable challenges since. Not sure what it is about corn dogs that makes them so delicious at two and so revolting at six.



Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Welcome
We've waited too long for this - the official MB&B Eating Challenge blog. We're about 10 or so challenges in, so I'll slowly post the results and photos from those. I'll also post lookaheads to future competitions.
In that vein, July's eating competition will be Tour de Rice. We will all get 10 cups pounds (cups would be too easy) of rice we may prepare however we like, and the first to eat it all wins. There will also be daily and hourly competitions.
Looking farther ahead, we have chocolate pies, dog racing, wasabi, another buffet...
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