In the last post, I mentioned the Man vs Food Challenge at Smoke BBQ in Sheffield. Basically its a large burger you have to eat in 30 minutes or less.
I had a go at it today. From the description,
Four beef patties, pulled pork, brisket, cheese and onion strings in a burger bun with a 500g of fries, slaw, cornbread muffin and a two pint milk shake
I scoped out the challenge before hand and didn’t think much to it. Burgers only quarter pounders, chips taste nice and only 1lb of them and the milkshake wasn’t too thick. The only problem could be cornbread muffin. Thats a bit dry. I was quite confident of beat the challenge in less than 30 minutes. The record is just over 25 minutes set by one of the Smoke staff.
The prize for completing the challenge is a cool £100 in vouchers for Smoke and you get the meal for free. For £100 I wasn’t going to take this lightly. I was going to train. Luckily there is a Cosmo all you can eat buffet across the street from Smoke. I went in there yesterday and stuffed my face with 4 plates of food, thus expanding my stomach to full capacity. That was almost 24 hours before so I had plenty of time to get rid of the food and have a stretched but empty stomach for this challenge.
So I turn up with a couple of friends (thanks JJ and Fiona). You have to eat the challenge on a table separate from everyone else. This is to prevent cheating. I suppose it makes sense. You don’t want someone slying some chips to someone else when no one is looking.
The challenge
So even when the challenge came out, I was pretty confident. Only 1 spike holding it up. I’ve done bigger burgers than that before. I opt for a vanilla milk shake. You have a choice between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.
I start off really well. Just eating a patty at a time while eating the chips. I use the milkshake as my main drink rather than drinking any water. Its working really well and I am half way through at the 10 minute mark, looking like smashing the record. All that training looked like it had paid off.
I started slowing down which was to be expected but about 20 minutes in, I had hit the wall. I only had a bit of the burger left and the cornbread muffin left though so I was still confident. The burger went down slowly but still, I had a good 6-7 minutes left to finish the muffin and side slaw. The staff record had gone but the general public record was still up for grabs at 29 minutes.
That muffin was just so hard to eat though. I really wish I would have eaten that first. It was dry and not very nice. I should have broken that up and sprinkled it over the chips and ate bits as I went along. With about 2 minutes and half a muffin left, I had to throw in the towel. I think any more cornbread and I’d have thrown it up. So close, yet so far away.
What was left at the end
Very disappointed in it all. Its not even I can fall back and think “if only I had trained properly for it”. I’ll probably go back one day but only to try some of the other stuff on the menu.
If you want to have a go, its
Smoke Barbecue Restaurant
St Paul’s Place,
Sheffield
S1 2PN
0114 331 0331
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Read more about the challenge here.
Disclosure: Even though I failed, I still got my meal for free.
****UPDATE*****
Another challenger’s write up. She did it on the same day as me and also failed.
