Swine is Fine

You craving some real food? Head to Crave. They have the Big Bad Wolf Challenge. It consists of 3 loaded burgers and tons of fried onion strings.


Each burger is: 1/2 lb patty of some really delicious beef, 1 lb of a pulled pork-ham-bacon, and huge brioche buns. And some special sauce.

I started really well! Ate the patties, the pulled pork, ham, and bacon first.

Easily the best tasting eating challenge in my 5+ years of eating.

Killing it.

Here's where I think I made a mistake. I put some of the burger innards in the buns and ate that way. The buns were dense. Really dense. Next time, I will wait to do the buns until last.

Time is close to running out.

Time did run out. I had a little less than 1/2 of one burger remaining.

Me and T-bonz had an Elvis shake afterwards. Peanut butter ice cream, a banana, fudge, whipped cream, and BACON bits mixed in, and topped with two bacon strips! You, go there.

Screwed in the End

Went to the West End Tavern in Boulder to take the Wing King Challenge. I did it last year but wanted to do it again. We got seated at the same table, too.

The photo above is all you need to know about the challenge. No bones, just a few meat scraps and bits of skin.


I started out on a pretty good pace. First few minutes did 20 of the jumbo wings. Then something happened.

Fast forward.





In the final 10 seconds I had to really chipmunk the remaining meat. But the manager, when reviewing the rules, explicitly allowed chipmunking at the end. So the win/no win was not based upon that. I got through all 50 wings in 30 minutes, but because of the few bits of skin and meat detritus on my plate the manager would not declare the win. Never mind the clean bones or no debris on or off the table.

Clearly I screwed up by taking the challenge to the end of the allotted time, but c’mon. If anyone else were to see a before photo, and an after photo, that’d be a win. But the rules of the challenge are pretty clear...

I’ll be back, soon, to try again!

View the complete gallery here on Facebook.

Wall of Fame

Here are photos of the Taste of Philly Wall of Fame at the Highlands Ranch location.


I had gone there in October to take the Apollo Challenge.
I became the 1st person to complete the challenge at the 3 locations that offer it. Shockingly, my 22 minute time at this location is the best time.

A Big Steak

I went in expecting a 4 pound steak plus two sides of my choice. When I tried this in Beaver Creek last year the sides were normal-sized. But it turned out to be more.

Me & Dick say WTF with this HUGE salad?!?

Not more food, per se. But more poundage. For a moment, I thought about not doing it. But I wanted to do it because they can f*ck themselves. Same steak, but the sides were 1 pound each. So 1 pound of salad, and 1 pound of green chile. And the 4 pounds of steak.


And the steak, really pretty nasty. Sinewy, fatty, gristly, just nasty. Actually I pulled a muscle in my back because of the cutting. But it tasted pretty good. Not nearly as good as the big steak at the Big Texan, but passable indeed.

I started in on it. Killing it early. Quite flavorful. But as I got closer to the middle, it got more and more rare. It was nice and medium on the outer edges, but became medium rare, then rare, then still mooing. I had them cook the middle 1/3 more.


During that few minutes, I got on the green chile and salad. Actually forcing me to eat some chile and salad was a good move from a flavor fatigue perspective.


When the steak came back, it wasn't mooing. That's good. But the edges of the re-cooked meat were much more well-done than before.

I polished off the steak, then finished off the salad, gulped down the remainder of the chile, and I was done. 47 minutes.

The guy next to me bet our server $20 that I'd not finish. Ha!

I did take my pre weight. 152lbs. Post, 158lbs. 6 pounds. Exactly what I thought it would be because I hardly too in water or any other drink at all. The meat juice and the green chile provided good lube.

We walked around the corner for some Dairy Queen soft serve. Nice!

Coaching could not have been better. T-bonz, well, my rock. But also with Mommye, 3M, 2D, Letina [still working on a nickname]...even with the added poundage of the challenge with them my finishing was not in doubt. Thanks girls!

For many more photos, here is the link to the photo album on Facebook.

And my GI recovery is on Twitter.

Up until this I was 0-3 against steak challenges! Finally a steak win!

IKEA Update

Here are some pictures taken yesterday at the IKEA construction site in Centennial, Colorado.

Lots of activity. And if you've been following the updates, these pictures should blow you away!

Parking is below the building. Here, the NW corner.



SE corner

Wow! This building is going to be massive!

My 2nd Flyer

This was the flyer that Mezcal put together to advertise their 2nd taco eating contest. I had won the 1st contest in June. If you don't know already, click here to find out what happened in contest #2.