Big Eyed Fish

Click here to see the Krystal video.

So this one, while still fun and a great experience, will probably go down as one of my least favorite IFOCE events I've been able to be in.

It started out well - T getting me to the airport, breezing to the gate, and arriving in Phoenix without any problems.



I get to the fair. I pass by some booths that have the World's Smallest Horse, World's Biggest Gator, World's Hairiest Man but go by those to the area where the Sky City Casino World Fry Bread Eating Championship will be. Nice area with three separate stages. On #1 is the AWAA championship. On #2 is USDOS championship.



On #3 is Sky City Casino World Fry Bread Eating Championship.



Oh, for those who don't know AWAA is the Arm Wrestling Association of America and USDOS is the United States Dutch Oven Society. What a lineup - AWAA, USDOS, IFOCE.

Here's a photo from behind the stage showing the large crowd. You can get an idea of how large the fry bread was.



There were 12 eaters. 8 ranked, 4 local guys. With the stage being on the small side this necessitated the tables being in an L formation, 8 at one and 4 on the other. As nobody went over to the kids table when they were announced there was a little re-arranging by Ryan before the eating began. But 10-9-8 and it was on.

From that photo above you may have gotten an idea of the size of the fry bread, but you got no idea of the consistency. From what I've heard about indian fry bread, when freshly made, it is sort of like a doughnut without the hole. But when it sits around and is allowed to cool off it often becomes hard and not too enjoyable. That's what people had told me. I thought no, let it sit around and it may get limp like french fries. But no, the fry bread was rock hard. A few times I let it soak in water but that didn't soften it at all. Then it was just wet beef jerky. And the chewing - very difficult to chew and tear bites off. Yeah, that strong jaw idea, it is important. I've always minimized chewing; any preparations I do focus on getting the food down the throat, not chewing it. I wasn't as prepared for this as I thought.

But everyone faced the same thing. Like the 3 Brother's pizza competition, determining where everyone finished is almost impossible because Ryan only looked at a few plates that could have been in the mix. My stack of 10 was down to 4.5 left, so 5.5 eaten but 1.0 was deducted for leftovers on the table beside my plate because I was not the neatest in trying to find edible pieces. I put my placing at 5th because when I was standing around I looked at the plates and just saw one other plate that looked to have a shorter stack than mine. But it's hard to say who finished where when you take into account bread detritus both on the table and in cups.

With not having much to eat for 24 hours, afterwards I did see one thing that I wanted to try. I originally had hoped to try Indian Fry Bread, fried Twinkies, and fried Oreos. But I struck out on all 3. I don't want to call the fry bread we ate real fry bread - I still say I haven't had it. I did not see any fried Twinkies. Same with the Oreos - I found none. But I did see this:



Fried Snickers! So I got one:








To make the Snickers, the guy unwrapped a bar, shoved a stick in it, dipped it in batter, and put it in the oil for a couple of seconds. End result was sort of like corn dog coating wrapped around a melty-ooey-gooey-nougatty-nutty center. I got through 3/4 of it, took some photos, and threw away the remains. Why didn't I try some good fry bread?!?

But the day wasn't a total loss. Bodog.com had odds and was taking bets on 3 different wagers surrounding the Krystal Square Off III World Hamburger Eating Championship held in Chattanooga, TN this same day. One wager was who'd win. Another was would a contestant eat more than 70 hamburgers. Another was would the total eaten by all the competitors be over 645. Each bet had a $50 max. I bet $44 on #2 and #3. Both won - Kobayashi ate 97, and the total eaten was 740 or something. In 8 minutes!