Try, Try Again...

Back at Mannie & Bo's Pizzeria in Golden to try the calzone challenge. Jimmy & I were the 1st team to conquer the team challenge. But I want to be the 1st to take down the solo challenge.

I didn't plan to try it again until September, but the situation presents itself the day before. So I go in without the lead time I prefer, but hey!

Odd look on my face. Come on, have fun with it!

Hooray us!

Their Wall. We're the 1.

Mommye's sausage sandwich. Homemade Italian sausage, green chile strip, cheese. YUM!

T-bonz went with the Taco Calzone. It's under the lettuce, tomato, and green chile.

Taco Calzone

The big 6lb calzone. A pizza and normal-sized calzone behind the big calzone.

Bo brings out the calzone.

Nice greasy goodness to the left.

Went flop-less

Letting it cool a bit before starting. It's steamy hot!

It's cooling.

About to begin.

Starting. It's still HOT.

Classic yellow sign!

Good start. Kept clear, and not much water.

Early on. Lots of meats.

Finishing 1st half.

Man, that pound of sausage is super rich!

See?

On to the 2nd half.

2nd half.

Yeah.

About end of time.

One last push.

Time is about up.

2.04 pounds left.

Damn.

There's the pound of cheese in it, a pound of dough, and then 4 pounds of meats. Too much meat? The calzone is so good, no doubt, but all that meat just whacks me. Yes, I ate more than my last solo attempt - so that's good - but dang it.

Amber? Miranda?

Big Meat

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!

Gordos Locos y Gordas Locas

At the beginning:

End:

Between that, here's what happened:


Gordo Loco has been open for a few weeks but they had the "Grande Opening" and part of that was a burrito eating contest. On their menu is the 5 pound El Diablo burrito. Some carnitas, chicken, green chile. And 2 pounds of fries. In the burrito. And it is smothered.

The ingredients in the burrito are quite wet so the El Diablo is more flat and spready than burrito form.

The Mejia campaign (a guy running for mayor) was represented.

There were 14 competitors. It was broken in 3 waves, each wave overlapped the other wave. Everyone in the 1st wave used knives and forks. I was in the 2nd wave. You know how I eat. I went to town with it. The crowd gasped. People, this is an eating contest, not a beauty contest.

The 1st wave. The girl at the bottom of the photo had her baby along side. She started well but gave up.

The campaign girl

The guy next to me - he in wave #1 - was methodical, but gave up too.

Out of 14 eaters, 5 finished the burrito.

1st: Jimmy Mares, 13 minutes
2nd: Andrew "A-Bomb" Lane, 19 minutes
3rd: Rick Gavin, 40 minutes
4th: Jon Adelia, 44 minutes
5th: Mark Sutherberg, 44 minutes

The Govanator

Govnr's Park. Denver's Original Tavern. Big burger.

28"

Jimmy and I met up at Abo's Pizza to take their 28" pizza challenge. A team of two people have 1 hour to completely eat a 28" two-topping pizza. You cannot stand up once the time starts. We chose red onion and pepperoni. 32 teams have tried, and none of them have finished the pizza, let alone in the time limit.

20 minutes later, it's time. We have a seat, and we dig in. It's hot, just out of the oven. We're both handsy eaters so we have no problem: slide off the hot cheese + topping layer and work on the crust.

Going in I thought 20 minutes would be our time. It ended up that we took more time, but my thought of 20 minutes was right on in one way: the cheese, which was at the start hot and gooey, solidified and congealed quite dramatically at 20 minutes. Too bad we missed that time.

We finished in 32:02. That time could have been a few minutes better if I didn't take so long to clear at the end. The Abo's guy waited until we cleared before stopping the time.


We are the only team out of 32 previous teams to finish. And for other teams to beat the challenge now they'd have to do it with a faster time than ours. A first for me: a photo of Jimmy and I (Team JiminBomber) will go on the restaurant wall right by the menu board!


Pizza specs: 12.5 pounds - 7 lbs dough, 2 lbs sauce, 2 lbs cheese, 1.5 lbs of red onion + pepperoni.