Extreme Belly Busters
Food lover devours four eating challenges in the metro
By Jared Curtis
Photos by Matt Miller
I’ll be the first to admit it, I enjoy eating. Since I was a little kid I have been overweight or “husky,” as my mom would say. I remember staying at Grandma Kate’s house and waking up to a behemoth breakfast with enough food for a small army instead of an 8-year-old boy, but I dutifully cleaned my plate. Today, I’m still “husky,” or “festively plump” around the holidays, but I can’t pack away as much as I used to. So when a food challenge idea arose, I decided to chew it down. With the popularity of ridiculous food challenges on “Man V. Food” sweeping the nation, I thought we should hold our own challenge, Des Moines style. So throughout the past gluttony-filled month, I attempted four local eating challenges, all with rewards such as T-shirts and wall photos immortalizing victories or defeats. Some went well, some went badly and one was easily the worst experience of my life. These certainly aren’t all the food challenges in town, and there are also numerous places that offer extreme eating challenges with no rewards for clogged arteries. Even so, strap on the feedbag and step up to the plate. And if you know of any good cardiologists, feel free to send them my way.
Fanatics Grille & Bar
615 3rd St. (inside All Play)
“The Fatty Challenge”
Price: $19.99
Ingredients: Three slices of sourdough bread, a beef patty, 8 ounces of ham, 8 ounces of carnita meat (seasoned pork), a fried tenderloin, two cheese sticks, three mini corndogs, three strips of bacon, five cheeseballs, three onion rings, three boneless wings, eight pieces of cheese. Then the entire sandwich is covered in queso dip cheese. Add on a pound of French fries, and this challenge totals 4 lbs. of food.
Rules: You must eat it all in 30 minutes or less. You can’t use the restroom during the challenge, and your friends can’t help you out.
What you win: A $20 game play card, an hour of free game play and a certificate of achievement.
How many have tried: More than 40
How many have finished: Three people with the fastest time being 9:43.
This was my first challenge, and I was ready to destroy it. Boy was I wrong. The heaping sandwich intimidated me at first sight. I thought if I tore the sandwich in three sections, it would go down easier. It didn’t. I had no problem getting through a piece of the bread and all the fried appetizers that I love. At the 10-minute mark, I struggled to get the burger and the second piece of bread down.
“He started off really well, and I thought he had a chance, but I think he hit the wall in the midway point,” said Don Cook, Fanatics food and beverage manager.
All the while I was trying to eat as many fries as I could. After finishing the carnita meat, I bit into the tenderloin, which had cooled down significantly, making it harder to finish. With about 10 minutes left, doubt had seeped into my brain, and the queso dip had turned into cement. With about 5 minutes to go, I knew there was no way I could finish, so I nibbled on fries until my 30 minutes were up.
And with that, my photo joined the “Tried and Died” wall of shame as my stomach began to turn. Looking back, I think using some ketchup or other condiments could have helped get more of the sandwich and fries down. Also, I’m positive if I had an hour for the challenge, I would have finished it. But that is a story for another time.
Rube’s Steakhouse
3309 Ute Ave., Waukee (also located in Montour)
“The 54-ounce Belly Buster”
Price: $41.50
Ingredients: A large 54-ounce (about 3 ½ lbs.) cut of premium Top Sirloin.
Rules: There is no time limit, but your friends can’t help.
What do you win: a Rube’s T-shirt (which you can’t buy) that says, “I Ate A Cow,” and your photo on its Wall of Fame.
How many have tried: No exact number, but the owners say hundreds.
How many have finished: Owners say that 30 to 40 percent finish it, and there are 280 photos on the wall at the Waukee location and 150 at the Montour location. The record is 10 minutes.
This was my second challenge, and I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to finish after my poor showing in “The Fatty Challenge.” To make matters worse, all I could think about was John Candy eating “The Old 96er” in the film “The Great Outdoors.” But I’m a steak eater, and I knew as long as it was a quality piece of meat and no time limit, I could finish. I set a personal goal to finish under an hour and began psyching myself up. Long-time employee J.R. Johnston handled the cooking duties, and he knew what he was doing. The steak was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and the first bites melted in my mouth.
“I came up with the idea in 1995, because we wanted to offer something big to hungry eaters,” said owner Matt Anderson. “Fifty-four ounces cooks well, and it really caught on. People love it, and it’s a great visual for customers to see when they walk in.”
I cut the big slab of beef into four chunks and started eating away. It tasted so good and was easy to get down. Following my advice from the last challenge, I asked my server for steak sauce and ketchup to help get it down. But I never even cracked open the lids because the steak was that good.
Getting down to my last chunk, I was feeling great and made the comment, “I can’t wait to wear that shirt home.” The temperature had lowered, so I asked my server to throw the last chunk on the grill for me. After a few minutes of heat, the reaming chunk was in front of me, and I tore right into it. The last bite was just as good as the first and was a much-needed confidence booster looking ahead to my next challenge. I finished “The Belly Buster” in 39 minutes and wore my T-shirt home. The steak was outstanding, and I’ll return in the future. But next time I’ll go with 16 or 28 ounces of meat.
Cactus Bob’s BBQ Corral
5955 Merle Hay Road, Johnston
“The Showdown Challenge”
Price: $6
Ingredients: It’s a basic sandwich with sliced meat of your choice smothered in “Showdown Sauce.”
Rules: You must finish the sandwich in less than 10 minutes without taking a drink. You must also sign a waiver before you start.
What do you win: A Cactus Bob’s T-shirt and your photo on the Wall of Dangerous Eating Desperadoes.
How many have tried: More than 500 people, with the fastest finishing in 55 seconds.
How many have finished: Seventy-five have finished, but only one woman.
Going in, this was my most feared challenge. I like to add a little spice to my food, but I’m not the person who enjoys biting into a hot pepper. To make matters worse, owner Craig DeDecker teased me about how hot it was.
“We started the idea and the wall of flame in honor of local BBQ great Big Daddy. People kept asking for hotter, so I made it hotter,” DeDecker said. “I tell people this sauce will make Big Daddy’s sauce seem like ketchup.”
DeDecker suggested trying his hottest everyday sauce called “Blackbart’s Desert Death,” and if I couldn’t handle it, I shouldn’t even try the challenge. I dabbed a pinky and it burned my mouth. It was extremely hot, but I wasn’t going to quit now. I tried to obtain the sauce’s secret recipe, but DeDecker wouldn’t offer any hints.
“It’s a super-secret sauce that I have collaborated with CaJohn [a famous sauce, spice and marinade creator],” he said. “I guarantee it is the hottest sauce in town.”
Although he wouldn’t give up the ingredients, he did offer its heat rating, which is measured using the Scoville scale. A jalapeno pepper ranges in the 5 to 8,000 range, and the hottest pepper, Bhut Jolokia — also known as “The Ghost Pepper” — registers about one million on the Scoville scale. The sauce for “The Showdown Challenge” is about 4.5 million on the Scoville scale. Law enforcement grade pepper spray rates around five million.
I smiled away as I signed the waiver, but that was the last time I would be smiling for the day. Taking DeDecker’s advice to get it down as quickly as I could, I took two huge bites, almost finishing the sandwich. But it oozed out of the bread and onto the plate, and I struggled trying to get the mouthful of fire down. I had to stop chewing on numerous occasions, just to catch my breath. My mouth, throat and stomach were already burning. I finally finished the bread and wanted to quit. But with only a few bites on the plate between me and immortality, I knew I couldn’t stop.
So with sweat and tears running down my face, I scooped up the last few bites and finished the challenge in 3:39. I immediately started drinking water and rubbing ice as my lips and the creases of my mouth burned with pain. But the pain was short lived as the staff placed my picture on the Wall of Dangerous Eating Desperadoes. It was by far the worst of my four challenges. The next time I go back, I’ll stick to the sweet sauce.
Side note: I was going to attempt another spicy food challenge, but declined due to the 24 hours I had after finishing “The Showdown Challenge.” I encourage anyone who believes they can handle the heat to visit Cactus Bob’s. Just remember, you’ve been warned.
Grandma Max’s Restaurant
11957 Douglas Parkway, Urbandale
3231 Adventureland Drive, Altoona
“The Big Max Burger”
Price: $16.99
Ingredients: Two pounds of ground beef, numerous slices of cheese, a one-pound homemade bun and a pound of lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle, totaling four pounds.
Rules: You must finish the burger in less than an hour.
What do you win: An “I ate the Big Max Burger” T-shirt and photo on the winner wall.
How many have tried: In the past 10 years, they have sold more than 12,000 Big Max Burgers at Bosselman Travel Centers (six different locations in Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas and Iowa).
How many have finished: There is not an official number, but Charlie Bosselman, President of Bosselman Inc., says about half who try, finish it.
The final challenge came from a place you’d expect to find a big meal — a truck stop. A place for weary travelers and truckers to fill their belly, Grandma Max’s Restaurant is a step back into a time when diners were all the rage. The old school look and feel adds to the pleasing ambiance, and I was ready to defeat my last challenge, no matter the consequences.
Manager Krystal Tolson started preparing the behemoth burger (it takes about 25 minutes from start to finish) and showed me the “Big Max Masters” photo wall (which had around 50 photos) and the adjacent “Tried and Died” wall (which had more than 60 photos). One thing was for sure, I was going home a master.
“It’s normally the really skinny people that can finish quickly. I saw one lady who didn’t weigh more than 90 pounds, but ate a Big Max Burger and then finished off a thick milkshake,” Tolson said.
As my server brought out the massive burger, everyone stopped eating and stared at the beast of a sandwich placed before me.
“We make it a point when we bring one out to walk around the dining area as much as possible so that all the customers get a good look at it,” Bosselman said.
As the time began, I dove right it. I cut the burger in half, talking on the bigger chunk first. The burger was delicious, and I had no problem taking down an entire half in 11 minutes. The bun was not as dense as I figured and was actually quite flaky. But it was the hardest part to finish.
I cut the remaining portion in half and went for the burger first. This was the first time I used a condiment in my challenge. Ketchup helped me get down a quarter of it, but was struggling with what was left. I was feeling quite full and had to take a short break to walk around, get some fresh air and use a shaking technique like I’d seen professional eaters do. I slathered the remaining burger in ketchup and got it down. All that was left was a chunk of bun. I took big bites, but then drank water so it would mush in my mouth and slide right down my throat. I finished my last bite at the 40-minute mark and held my T-shirt up in victory. Not only was I pleased to finish three of the four challenges, but I was immensely glad this entire belly busting task was finally over. CV
Captions:
The 4-lb. “Fatty Challenge” was like three sandwiches covered in love (or some would call it nacho cheese).
After 30 minutes, I had plenty left, but my stomach couldn’t handle any more.
The 54-ounce “Belly Buster” dwarfed a 12-ounce steak and toast on the grill at Rube’s Steakhouse.
The first victory built my confidence for the next two challenges.
I thought a small sandwich shouldn’t be a problem, until it began burning me from the inside out.
Sweaty, with a belly full of fire, the sandwich produced tears of joy... or maybe tears of pain?
Four pounds of fury at Grandma Max’s.
After a 40-minute battle, I emerged victorious. Not only had I finished this contest, I had also finished my entire challenge. Glory prevailed over gluttony!
