Back when I was a senior in high school, my friends Ken and Dan and I would sneak out of school mid-day for lunch. Rather than dining on cafeteria food, we’d head over to East Wok, the local Chinese place, and partake in their all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. Of course, the goal of the trip was to live up to the all-you-can-eat name, and we would often have contests to see who could eat the most. Four or Five plates of food were not uncommon. Ah, to be back in high school again. Now if I eat one plate of Chinese food I’m full and I feel disgusted with myself.
Disgusted might be the appropriate word to describe how I felt last night as I watched a TV show on the Travel Channel. I’m relatively new to the blogoverse, but I realize that recapping TV shows is not the way to lure in readers and provide great entertainment. However, I have to make an exception today. Last night I watched a show that is absolutely worth talking about — “The World’s Best Places to Pig Out.” Now, despite the word “world” being part of the title, I doubt anyone will be surprised that none of these places are located in Africa, or Europe, or South America (although those Churrascarias in Brazil and Argentina do offer quite a bit of food), or even Asia. Apparently Antarctica came close to getting an entry in there, but fortunately, the USA had DOMINATED the list of best places to pit out, with a clean sweep! God bless America indeed! USA! USA! So, yes, for an hour last night I watched as average Americans (either drunk or stupid, often both) put themselves to the test, going beyond what any normal human would consider to be healthy boundaries, to try to meet the challenge of these fine eating establishments.
And now, with the assistance of the summaries written by the Travel Channel, for your reading pleasure (and as a guide for those looking to commit suicide via stomach rupture), I give you the World’s 10 Best Places to Pig Out!!!
10. Big Texan Steak Ranch — Amarillo, TX: Let’s start off by heading down to Texas, where you can pig out by facing the challenge of the “World Famous, Free, Seventy-Two Ounce Steak Dinner.” Despite the fact that you all probably know about this already (it is “world famous,” after all), I’ll fill you in on the details. For $50 you get a tossed salad, a roll with butter, a shrimp cocktail, a baked potato (the size of my forearm), and, of course, a 72 ounce steak! Eat it all in an hour or less, and it’s free (hence the “free” part of the name). I have to say, if you could see a picture, the baked potato alone looks like it would be tough to eat in an hour, not to mention the 72 oz. steak that goes with it. According to the Travel Channel website, the contest was started in 1960, and since then nearly 4,800 people have completed the meal out of 30,000 who have tried. A few unfathomable stomachs have even finished two 72-ounce steak dinners in the allotted time, and one guy ate the entire meal in just 9-½ minutes. I guess that’s why this is only number 10 on the list, despite being more food than any person should eat in two days, not to mention one meal.
9. Cluck-U Wings - Delaware (and Franchises in 29 other states): I’d like to compliment this entry on the list for being less disgusting in terms of the volume of food ingested, but it more than compensates based on the ferocity of the food. Cluck-U brings us the 911 challenge, involving its famous 911 hot sauce, made from combination of 16 peppers with an emphasis on the habanero, the hottest pepper in the world. This sauce is so hot you have to sign a liability waiver before taking part in the 911 challenge. But all you have to do is eat 6 wings in 5 minutes, without drinking any beverage. Think about it — 6 wings in 5 minutes is super-easy, so that 911 sauce must be like acid. But on the plus side, if you don’t die and if you win the challenge, you get a free t-shirt. Well worth burning your insides, right? And of course, if you think that this place doesn’t belong on the list because it doesn’t offer an obscene, only-in-America-esque amount of food, think again. You can order wings in sizes from 6 to 6,000! So even if you don’t get your wings covered in acid sauce, you can still eat a larger quantity than any human being should.
8. Pointers Pizza — St. Louis, MO: At the number 8 spot is where we start to get serious, with the challenge of the Pointersaurus! You know they mean business when they name something after a dinosaur! This challenge is so big that it is for two people, not just one. For $42 you get the Pointersaurus, a 28-inch pizza made from 4-½ pounds of dough, 2 pounds of mozzarella, 2 pounds of tomato sauce, and 3 pounds of meat. This thing is huge (thanks to the magic of youtube, you can see it here). If your team of 2 can eat this monster pizza in an hour, Pointers Pizza will pay you $500. Basically what they are saying is that eating this much pizza is such a disgusting task that they have to dare you into it with a huge cash prize — the crappy t-shirts that these other challenges offer just don’t cut it for this much pizza! But at least they don’t make you eat a bunch of side-items like some of the other challenges do. On a positive note, the Pointersaurus at least covers all of the food groups, so it can’t be totally unhealthy.
7. Primanti Bros. - Pittsburgh, PA: To be honest, I can’t say that I understand why Primanti Bros is on this list. Their sandwich is big, but it’s not disgusting or obscene, like the food involved in some of these other places. They start with two thick slices of Italian bread, add a half-pound of meat, a layer of tomato slices, and a fried egg. As if that alone weren’t enough, they top off the sandwich by adding a large order of fries and a big mound of cole-slaw — to the sandwich! Obviously this is a meal designed to be eaten on the run (if you could fit the thing into your mouth). Believe it or not, Primanti Bros has locations in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I actually ate there. I didn’t know about the fabled sandwiches, though, and I just got a cheese-steak. As I write this I actually feel a bit sad, like I missed out (who would have ever thought that the cheese-steak could ever be the “healthy” option at a restaurant?).
6. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Shop — at over 400 franchises in the US, one near you!: We all know Ben and Jerry’s, but most of us don’t pig out when we go there, at least not to the level necessary to hit number 6 on this list. But that position is well earned if you go to B&J and order yourself a Vermonster. What is it? See for yourself. For those too lazy to view video, the Vermonster is 20 scoops of ice cream, four bananas, one fudge brownie, three chocolate chip cookies, four ladles of hot fudge, 18 scoops of toppings (walnuts, sprinkles, chocolate chips, etc.) and loads of whipped cream. Basically, it’s an assload of sugar. I did a youtube search and the Vermonster is all over the place, but always being eaten by groups. On this Travel Channel show, they had 5 people who each tried to take on the Vermonster ALONE. And two of them came very close. And then they vomited. Repeatedly. And quite deservedly.
5. Acme Oyster House — New Orleans, LA: This marks the second place on the list that I’ve been to, and as with Primanti Bros., I didn’t get the full pig-out experience. And again, I’m not sure this place belongs on the list. It made it based on the fact that some people just eat a lot of food. Back in 1988, some guy ate 16 dozen oysters, and thus was the first to make it on to the “fame board” (only in the south are they not smart enough to use the obvious “wall of fame”). Since then, an ongoing battle has been waged for the title of biggest oyster-eater. The current champion is a hulk of a man who ate 52 dozen oysters in 2-½ hours. As I said, I don’t know that this place belongs. I could go to the local salad shop and eat 52 salads, but that doesn’t make the salad shop one of the best places in the world to pig out.
4. Beth’s Cafe — Seattle, WA: After the slight bump in the road at number 5 on the list, we get solidly back on track at number 4 with Beth’s Cafe in Seattle. According to the Travel Channel show, people in Seattle like to drink, and when they are drunk and hungry at 4am, Beth’s is the place they go to. This is evidenced by the fact that the walls are decorated with crayon drawings from drunken morons. Talk about ambiance! And of course, nothing satisfies drunkards like tons and tons of food. To meet this challenge, Beth’s serves up a 12-egg omelet! Add to that toast and huge mass of hash-browns, and you have so much food it has to be served on a pizza plate. You can see what this mass of food looks like here (and you can even see the crayola masterpieces on the wall in the background). When you’re done eating, you may no longer be drunk, but you’ll most certainly be sick!
3. Seiad Valley Cafe – Seiad Valley, CA: Sticking to the breakfast theme, number 3 brings us to the pancake challenge at the Seiad Valley Cafe. What’s the challenge? Simple — eat a stack of five pancakes that weighs a total of five pounds (for those of you that are mathematically challenged, each pancake weighs a whopping .45 kilograms!!). Maybe it’s me, but that sounds like a lot of pancakes. Actually, it’s not just me — on the show they had two redneck yokels trying to eat the huge stack of pancakes, and they both failed. In fact, since the restaurant opened in 1984, only six people have answered the call and finished the stack. Andrea loves pancakes. They are her favorite. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like engulfing gluttonous disgusting amounts of food, so despite her preferred breakfast option being at the center of this challenge, something tells me we won’t be heading out to Seiad Valley on our next vacation (besides, there’s no scuba diving there).
2. Eagle’s Deli — Brighton, MA: Remember the top-10 lists on David Letterman? Remember how #2 on the list was always the best one? Well, this list is the same. Number 1 may well be legit in terms of being a great place to pig out, but nothing is more absurd than the pig-out offered at Eagle’s Deli. They used to have the Godzilla Burger, a one-pound burger, but obviously that wasn’t enough of a challenge to America’s insatiable appetites. So they upped the ante with the Reilly Burger. A mere $25 gets you a Reilly burger, consisting of SIX half-pound burgers separated by a quarter-pound worth of cheese, served on a bun with skewers holding it together. But that’s not all — it is served with a whopping FIVE pounds of french fries! Finish it within 2.5 hours and you get your money back, and your picture on the wall (no word on whether you also get a free ride to the emergency room to have your stomach pumped). And if that weren’t bad enough, according to the Travel Channel there have been unconfirmed rumors of an even larger burger at Eagle’s Deli: the Chillerama, which reportedly consists of 5 pounds of hamburger meat, 20 slices of cheese and 18 strips of bacon.
1. Lambert’s Cafe — Sikeston, MO: According to the good folks at Travel Channel: “After months of research and untold amounts of food, it became obvious that the best place to pig out on the planet is Lambert’s Cafe in Sikeston, Mo. This quaint, Southern-style restaurant is a living shrine to gluttony — in the finest sense of the word, of course. Each exorbitant meal comes with infinite helpings of free “pass arounds,” so there is absolutely no limit to the amount of food you can stuff your face with. Servers sweep the restaurant with food carts loaded to the breaking point with down-home delicacies, such as fried okra, black-eyed peas, fried potatoes, sorghum and honey, and macaroni and tomatoes. And then there are the hot, buttery, oversized rolls, which are also free of charge — if you can catch them. That’s right, if you’re ever at Lambert’s Cafe, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for flying rolls. “ I have to admit, it sounds pretty gluttonous. I don’t know that I would have ranked it #1 based on the fact that there is no “challenge” involved, or no quantifiable amount of disgusting gluttony like you can find at most of the other places on the list. However, they do get points for endless supply of fried potatoes, and when you see the size of the rack of ribs that they serve to go along with all of these sides, you know that some serious eating goes on there. So even though the eating isn’t measured in pounds, rest assured there is some serious pigging-out going on there. Don’t believe me? Ask two random fat guys.
So that’s it. The top 10 places in the world to pig out, and all right here in our own back yard! Never have I been so proud to be an American! USA! USA!
When does my flight for the Cayman Islands leave again?