A Supposedly Fun Thing Leo Will Never Do Again
"I think I'm getting a little psyched out," Leo said.
It is 4:50pm on a muggy Saturday in late May. In 10 minutes is the 4th annual Go! Go! Curry! eating championship. Leo is my roommate and the biggest eater I know. Not biggest as in most gluttonous, biggest as in capacity-wise. We all know someone like that. The appointed human garbage can at dinners. For years, I and our friends have encouraged Leo to enter these now ubiquitous eating competitions. Clearly we all saw potential going to waste as he regularly cleaned up our leftovers at restaurants like a reverse Pez dispenser.
Today is the finals. Leo breezed through the qualifiers, wolfing down two plates of curry in one minute eleven seconds, good for fourth place where only the top four advance. At stake is $500 for first place. To the others: six minutes of spotlight, a pat on the back, and YouTube infamy (and a free early dinner).
"These guys are all professional eaters! They all have a page listing their recent achievements and prize winnings," Leo informed me. He was pacing outside when I got to the restaurant.
"What's the worst that can happen?" I ask. "So you don't win. Oh well."
"I don't want to be last," Leo said.
Go! Go! Curry! occupies a small 20x20 space near the chaos of Port Authority Bus Terminal. The inside has been transformed into a makeshift stage. The eaters will be arrayed in two rows: three in front, two in the back. Leo is slotted to sit at the front left from the audience's perspective.
The audience is packed tightly into the space. There are no more than fifteen of us, which doesn't sound like a lot but somehow felt sardine-esque anyway. It could have been the increasingly oppressive humidity. Summer has arrived, and a couple of tower fans stand no chance. I look longingly at the stack of iced tea in the fridge in the corner.
"Alright, who's ready to see a lot of curry being eaten??" An MC who looks a bit like a young John Ritter is trying to rile us up. The standard litany of audience engagement techniques are employed. ("When I say Go! Go!, you say, Curry!") He tells us a brief history of Go! Go! Curry!; apparently the founder was so entranced by a Hideki Matsui home run he decided to start a curry restaurant. (I don't get it either.) Meanwhile I begin to perspire in earnest and am confused as to how John Ritter is somehow staying cool despite wearing a sports jacket on top of his mustard yellow Go! Go! Curry! t-shirt.
He polls the audience: "Who are you here to cheer for?" Leo has a small entourage that showed up. Besides myself, several friends from LA happen to be in town for a bachelor party and we all dutifully appeared at Go! Go! Curry! at 5pm. But besides us, there are no other audience members with any vested interest. Half were Go! Go! Curry! royalty, including the founder himself (Matsui's #55 is printed on the back of his t-shirt). The remaining were street stragglers that wandered in, wondering what the commotion was all about.
"Our first contestant is Leo Chan!! He is a number cruncher who works in finance at Barney's New York. This is his FIRST ever eating competition. He joined because all his friends compliment his ability to eat without chewing!!!"
Leo charges in like it's the Super Bowl, white Apple earbuds planted in his cochlea. My bet is he's got Metallica on the playlist. That, or Norah Jones.
The next contestant is Will, who looks like he weighs north of 500 pounds. An XXXXL black Angry Birds t-shirt is draped over his impressive heft as he waddles in, shaking the earth with each thundering step. Traditional headphones is his music-listening device of choice. (I'm going to say he's tuned to a podcast of Tony Robbins.) Will is apparently a last second fill-in for the defending champ Joe, who couldn't defend his title because he had to work. John Ritter calls Joe a chicken.
Paul, David, and Masashi complete the dramatis personae. Paul, wearing a baseball cap flipped backwards, is basically a regular dude who probably works a solid blue collar job. David, John Ritter informs us, is a former heavyweight boxer. And he looks it--6'3", 220 is my eyeballed guess, square jawed, and uppercutting the air as he swaggers in. And Masashi is the winner of the Japanese qualifier. I think they flew him all the way here across the pond. He is a stoic statue, betraying no emotion, no signs of anxiety, Nipponese discipline instilled to his very toes. He is adorned in a black robe and on his crown is a samurai wig. The irony is he looks ridiculous, which was probably what he was going for.
"Of course, no competition can begin without a singing of the national anthem," John Ritter says. A rail thin Japanese lady in a teal-swirl of an evening gown goes up and sings a mournful tune. John Ritter compliments her profusely afterwards. "I've never heard it sung without instrumental backing before. It was so beautiful." The audience endures politely.
Meanwhile, the Go! Go! Curry! staff is bringing out colorful translucent bowls of rice and curry by the truck load and placing them around the contestants. Leo is giving strict instructions to one lady. He has a plan of attack, and the logistics must be perfect. David is in the back row, rotating his neck, cracking his knuckles. Paul leans back in his chair on the front right, crosses his legs, and pulls out a bottle of hot sauce. And Masashi, front dead center, just sits there, probably not even sweating underneath that wig and robe.
"Contestants will have five minutes and fifty-five seconds to eat as many bowls of curry as they can!!!" John Ritter directs our attention to a TV hung on the wall. It is a DVD playback of a recorded timer. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1!!!"
"C'mon Leo!" we, his entourage, yell, as the metaphorical starting gun goes off.
The most successful competitive eater of all time is probably Joey Chestnut. Chestnut has won the famous eating contest, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, for the past five years running. He set the world record in 2009, inhaling an mind boggling 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. If you have not seen a video replay of such feat, you owe it to yourself to be properly grossed out.
Chestnut took the title in 2007 from Takeru Kobayashi, probably the most famous competitive eater of all time. While Kobayashi has clearly become second fiddle, he was the original trailblazer, breaking competitive eating down to a science, implementing strict training regimens such as chugging gallons of water to stretch his stomach and stifle his gag reflexes. He is a six-time winner of Nathan's until Chestnut came along, first winning in 2001 by eating 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes. He broke the old record by 24.5 dogs that year.
Watching Chestnut and Kobayashi go at it is like watching Ali vs. Frazier. They are so far above and beyond their competition that what they do no longer resembles eating. They have trained their jaws, their esophagus, and their stomachs to do one thing in brutal synchronicity: process food. They cram hot dogs into their gullet by force, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, chew with extreme prejudice, and splash water and lemonade into their bloating cheeks. Bits of wet meat and bread speckle their hands and lips and chins and drip onto their shirts. It is incredibly disgusting but it is impossible to look away.
The 4th annual Go! Go! Curry! eating contest is not nearly as intense.
In fact, it looks downright leisurely compared to the mayhem of Nathan's. Paul is putting hot sauce into his curry and eating it like he's just there for dinner. Leo looks focused and is cranking, but started losing steam after a few minutes. Masashi is eating with the seriousness of a funeral but is racking up an impressive tower of bowls. Big Will is in the back, jumping up and down; he later explains to John Ritter during the post-game interview that it helps expel gas.
David the heavyweight boxer is the only one who looks remotely like a Joey Chestnut or Kobayashi. He is doing yeoman's work, bowl held an inch away from his face, and scooping rice and curry into his mouth with a certain violence. After two or three minutes, it is clear unless he defaults from vomiting or slows down dramatically, he is not going to be beat.
By minute four, Leo looks like he's hit the wall. The water to food consumed ratio begins to tilt up. John Ritter takes a look and says, "Uh oh. That's the game over face." And indeed, once Leo turned around and caught a glimpse of David, still destroying bowl after bowl of curry, he shook his head, drank some water, and started spectating more than eating.
The final tally for David: 25 bowls in five minutes, fifty-five seconds, or roughly a bowl every fourteen seconds. That topped even the winner last year, who only managed 18. Masashi or Will came in second or third; I can't remember because no one remembers the silver and bronze medalists. Leo put down a very respectable 12 bowls for his first ever eating competition, of which he trained only reluctantly despite my persistent flogging and delusion of being Apollo to his Rocky. And Paul the hot saucier cruised in dead last with 10. Word from the street is he headed straight to the toilet backstage and rebooted.
Meanwhile the smell of delicious Japanese curry has made everyone in Leo's entourage hungry. Leo says he feels like he is literally sweating curry. "Hey, you accomplished your goal--you were not last place," I pointed out. We all laugh and head towards a K-town restaurant for dinner, where he skips the meal but gets a Pinkberry yogurt from across the street instead.
It is 4:50pm on a muggy Saturday in late May. In 10 minutes is the 4th annual Go! Go! Curry! eating championship. Leo is my roommate and the biggest eater I know. Not biggest as in most gluttonous, biggest as in capacity-wise. We all know someone like that. The appointed human garbage can at dinners. For years, I and our friends have encouraged Leo to enter these now ubiquitous eating competitions. Clearly we all saw potential going to waste as he regularly cleaned up our leftovers at restaurants like a reverse Pez dispenser.
Today is the finals. Leo breezed through the qualifiers, wolfing down two plates of curry in one minute eleven seconds, good for fourth place where only the top four advance. At stake is $500 for first place. To the others: six minutes of spotlight, a pat on the back, and YouTube infamy (and a free early dinner).
"These guys are all professional eaters! They all have a page listing their recent achievements and prize winnings," Leo informed me. He was pacing outside when I got to the restaurant.
"What's the worst that can happen?" I ask. "So you don't win. Oh well."
"I don't want to be last," Leo said.
Go! Go! Curry! occupies a small 20x20 space near the chaos of Port Authority Bus Terminal. The inside has been transformed into a makeshift stage. The eaters will be arrayed in two rows: three in front, two in the back. Leo is slotted to sit at the front left from the audience's perspective.
The audience is packed tightly into the space. There are no more than fifteen of us, which doesn't sound like a lot but somehow felt sardine-esque anyway. It could have been the increasingly oppressive humidity. Summer has arrived, and a couple of tower fans stand no chance. I look longingly at the stack of iced tea in the fridge in the corner.
"Alright, who's ready to see a lot of curry being eaten??" An MC who looks a bit like a young John Ritter is trying to rile us up. The standard litany of audience engagement techniques are employed. ("When I say Go! Go!, you say, Curry!") He tells us a brief history of Go! Go! Curry!; apparently the founder was so entranced by a Hideki Matsui home run he decided to start a curry restaurant. (I don't get it either.) Meanwhile I begin to perspire in earnest and am confused as to how John Ritter is somehow staying cool despite wearing a sports jacket on top of his mustard yellow Go! Go! Curry! t-shirt.
He polls the audience: "Who are you here to cheer for?" Leo has a small entourage that showed up. Besides myself, several friends from LA happen to be in town for a bachelor party and we all dutifully appeared at Go! Go! Curry! at 5pm. But besides us, there are no other audience members with any vested interest. Half were Go! Go! Curry! royalty, including the founder himself (Matsui's #55 is printed on the back of his t-shirt). The remaining were street stragglers that wandered in, wondering what the commotion was all about.
"Our first contestant is Leo Chan!! He is a number cruncher who works in finance at Barney's New York. This is his FIRST ever eating competition. He joined because all his friends compliment his ability to eat without chewing!!!"
Leo charges in like it's the Super Bowl, white Apple earbuds planted in his cochlea. My bet is he's got Metallica on the playlist. That, or Norah Jones.
The next contestant is Will, who looks like he weighs north of 500 pounds. An XXXXL black Angry Birds t-shirt is draped over his impressive heft as he waddles in, shaking the earth with each thundering step. Traditional headphones is his music-listening device of choice. (I'm going to say he's tuned to a podcast of Tony Robbins.) Will is apparently a last second fill-in for the defending champ Joe, who couldn't defend his title because he had to work. John Ritter calls Joe a chicken.
Paul, David, and Masashi complete the dramatis personae. Paul, wearing a baseball cap flipped backwards, is basically a regular dude who probably works a solid blue collar job. David, John Ritter informs us, is a former heavyweight boxer. And he looks it--6'3", 220 is my eyeballed guess, square jawed, and uppercutting the air as he swaggers in. And Masashi is the winner of the Japanese qualifier. I think they flew him all the way here across the pond. He is a stoic statue, betraying no emotion, no signs of anxiety, Nipponese discipline instilled to his very toes. He is adorned in a black robe and on his crown is a samurai wig. The irony is he looks ridiculous, which was probably what he was going for.
"Of course, no competition can begin without a singing of the national anthem," John Ritter says. A rail thin Japanese lady in a teal-swirl of an evening gown goes up and sings a mournful tune. John Ritter compliments her profusely afterwards. "I've never heard it sung without instrumental backing before. It was so beautiful." The audience endures politely.
Meanwhile, the Go! Go! Curry! staff is bringing out colorful translucent bowls of rice and curry by the truck load and placing them around the contestants. Leo is giving strict instructions to one lady. He has a plan of attack, and the logistics must be perfect. David is in the back row, rotating his neck, cracking his knuckles. Paul leans back in his chair on the front right, crosses his legs, and pulls out a bottle of hot sauce. And Masashi, front dead center, just sits there, probably not even sweating underneath that wig and robe.
"Contestants will have five minutes and fifty-five seconds to eat as many bowls of curry as they can!!!" John Ritter directs our attention to a TV hung on the wall. It is a DVD playback of a recorded timer. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1!!!"
"C'mon Leo!" we, his entourage, yell, as the metaphorical starting gun goes off.
***
The most successful competitive eater of all time is probably Joey Chestnut. Chestnut has won the famous eating contest, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, for the past five years running. He set the world record in 2009, inhaling an mind boggling 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. If you have not seen a video replay of such feat, you owe it to yourself to be properly grossed out.
Chestnut took the title in 2007 from Takeru Kobayashi, probably the most famous competitive eater of all time. While Kobayashi has clearly become second fiddle, he was the original trailblazer, breaking competitive eating down to a science, implementing strict training regimens such as chugging gallons of water to stretch his stomach and stifle his gag reflexes. He is a six-time winner of Nathan's until Chestnut came along, first winning in 2001 by eating 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes. He broke the old record by 24.5 dogs that year.
Watching Chestnut and Kobayashi go at it is like watching Ali vs. Frazier. They are so far above and beyond their competition that what they do no longer resembles eating. They have trained their jaws, their esophagus, and their stomachs to do one thing in brutal synchronicity: process food. They cram hot dogs into their gullet by force, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, chew with extreme prejudice, and splash water and lemonade into their bloating cheeks. Bits of wet meat and bread speckle their hands and lips and chins and drip onto their shirts. It is incredibly disgusting but it is impossible to look away.
The 4th annual Go! Go! Curry! eating contest is not nearly as intense.
In fact, it looks downright leisurely compared to the mayhem of Nathan's. Paul is putting hot sauce into his curry and eating it like he's just there for dinner. Leo looks focused and is cranking, but started losing steam after a few minutes. Masashi is eating with the seriousness of a funeral but is racking up an impressive tower of bowls. Big Will is in the back, jumping up and down; he later explains to John Ritter during the post-game interview that it helps expel gas.
David the heavyweight boxer is the only one who looks remotely like a Joey Chestnut or Kobayashi. He is doing yeoman's work, bowl held an inch away from his face, and scooping rice and curry into his mouth with a certain violence. After two or three minutes, it is clear unless he defaults from vomiting or slows down dramatically, he is not going to be beat.
By minute four, Leo looks like he's hit the wall. The water to food consumed ratio begins to tilt up. John Ritter takes a look and says, "Uh oh. That's the game over face." And indeed, once Leo turned around and caught a glimpse of David, still destroying bowl after bowl of curry, he shook his head, drank some water, and started spectating more than eating.
The final tally for David: 25 bowls in five minutes, fifty-five seconds, or roughly a bowl every fourteen seconds. That topped even the winner last year, who only managed 18. Masashi or Will came in second or third; I can't remember because no one remembers the silver and bronze medalists. Leo put down a very respectable 12 bowls for his first ever eating competition, of which he trained only reluctantly despite my persistent flogging and delusion of being Apollo to his Rocky. And Paul the hot saucier cruised in dead last with 10. Word from the street is he headed straight to the toilet backstage and rebooted.
Meanwhile the smell of delicious Japanese curry has made everyone in Leo's entourage hungry. Leo says he feels like he is literally sweating curry. "Hey, you accomplished your goal--you were not last place," I pointed out. We all laugh and head towards a K-town restaurant for dinner, where he skips the meal but gets a Pinkberry yogurt from across the street instead.
