Caldonia’s in Aurora started an eating challenge in April. The Big Haas. Two half-pound Juicy Lucy patties, bacon, hot links, half-pound of smoked brisket, quarter-pound of ham, two fried eggs, cheese, mayo, angry dills, and all between two Texas toast grilled cheese sandwiches. Grilled onions, too? And two pounds of chili cheese fries which are doused in a cheese sauce – like Que Bueno or something. [Going in, I thought chile cheese fries, not chili cheese fries – WRONG]. A total of 6.2 pounds, or 100.6 ounces. Up to my attempt at it, 20 or so people had tried with nobody succeeding in eating the whole thing.
Empty Wall of Fame. Many on Wall of Shame
T-bonz. Mommye. SAW. My meal. 45 minutes on the clock. What I had been waiting for all day – it’s on!
I dig in to the top grilled cheese. Delicious. Ooey gooey goodness. The next 15 minutes were blurry, but I went layer by layer and more or less finished off the sandwich. The different meats involved were out of this world good – total meatgasm. The eggs provided just enough slime (in a very good way) to lube up the bites and to allow me to get them down without too much liquid having to be consumed (water and Gatorade G2 green was the beverage of choice).
I finished off the bottom grilled cheese. All along I had been mixing in some fries. So after polishing off the sandwich I had left the mound of fries.
Have I mentioned before that fries, in any form, are my nemesis? Have been and will be. It’s not potatoes that I despise. In a fried form though, I do. Shoestring, waffle, steak fries, whatever. Maybe it’s a texture thing of fried potatoes, I don’t know. Hash browns, OK. But deep fried potatoes, not so much.
Back to the challenge. After downing the sandwich in fine time, I plod – really, nothing more than that, just hanging on - through the fries. And finish with just over a minute and a half to spare. No doubt that T-bonz, Mommye, SAW, and the whole crowd pulled me through the last few minutes.
The employees at Caldonia’s, terrific. They were totally in to wanting somebody to finish The Big Haas. Patrick, the kitchen manager, created this beast. His earlier challenge was conquered in short order, so The Big Haas, built on that earlier challenge, was divined to be unconquerable by most.
It’s funny, for the last few months we’d drive by Caldonia’s every now and then and I’d say “why don’t they have an eating contest or challenge?”. Now they do. And it’s delicious.
Afterwards, two more 1sts to go along with me being the 1st to finish the challenge. We went to DQ and I could not finish the small cup of the vanilla soft-serve. And, I could not watch the new Man v. Food Nation.
I am
tweeting my recovery day.
More photos and video to come!
Labels: challenge
Before cooking it. 6 pounds of goodness! Lots of meat. Lots of cheese.
Now it is cooked & we're ready!
Wow. 4 pounds of meat.
Letting it cool a bit.
It's hot, no doubt.
Working on our first quarters. We flew through these. 
We're each on our final portions.
We got through our first portions in no time (four minutes or so). But each of us hit a wall or something. That's common for me - in my last cheesesteak run I flew through the first half in 3 minutes but limped in with 19 minutes for the other half.
Me shoving in the last bit. Jimmy had finished his half a few minutes earlier. He ate a few bites off my pile. That's a team player move!
23.
The champs!
The Smart Car!
Yeah.
