Japanese New Year’s Day competitive eating
R Suzuki reports that team eating contests were held during a New Year’s Day television special. The West team had Gal Sone and Takuya Yamamoto while the East team had Nobuyuki Shirota and Tomoko Miyake. The teams also contained some other celebrities. Men’s, women’s and mixed gender contests were held. The mixed gender contest was a 30 minute sushi contest which was won by the Galsone (154 pieces) / Yamamoto (174 pieces) team.
Tomoko Miyake reports about competing in the event in her blog.
“Theeta” Rappai, India’s top eater, dies
ibnlive.com reports that Kurian “Theeta” Rappai of Thrissur, India died Saturday morning. The English translation of “Theeta” is big eater and he earned his nickname by forcing restaurants to drop their all you can eat specials. The article claims that Rappai once ate 15kg (33 lb.) of pudding in one meal. Reports of Rappai’s age vary. ibnlive says he was 65 while newindpress claims he was 63. Rappai retired from big eating this summer due to diabetes and other health issues. sarathc’s father knew Rappai and he describes the time Rappai exacted revenge on a buffet that charged prices different from what was listed on the menu.
updated The Peninsula has an article about Rappai stating he was 67. The life expectancy for Indians is 60 – 61 years.
Kobayashi blogs about Taiwan
Kobayashi has posted a contest report and a trip report about Sunday’s mutton eating contest in Taiwan.
updated A Chinese language news clip of the contest is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YPvgD6BCBY Kobayashi ate using chopsticks.
Kobayashi wins Taiwan mutton contest
Google News has several Chinese articles reporting that Takeru Kobayashi won a mutton eating contest by eating 5.5 kg (12.1 lb.) of mutton in 24 minutes. The runner up ate 2.7 kg of mutton.
Kobayashi in Taiwan Dec 3
The Krystal Square Off was not Kobayashi’s last contest of 2006. He will do a contest in Taiwan on Sunday.
20 foot sushi roll contest clip available
Metacafe has a clip of a 20 foot sushi roll eating contest between Takako Akasaka and Misao Fujita that was held in a bowling alley. A brief segment of that contest appeared in Takako Akasaka’s career highlights video which was available for a short time on youtube. The contest has narration in English, but the narrator provides nothing but insults.
Where every day is Oct 31
The best Halloween themed competitive eating blog is maintained by “Deresque” Matsumuto. Deresque finished second to Natsuko “Gal” Sone in a noodle eating contest this past weekend.
Gal Sone takes the mike for Food Battle Stadiums 3
Food Battle Stadiums #3 was held this weekend in Japan. Gal Sone did not eat at that event, but served as the contest MC. She was late which resulted in the entire program being delayed 30 minutes. Nobuyuki Shirota and Tomoko Miyake ate in exhibitions but did not participate in the main contest.
Outsourced eating contest
The Globe and Mail has an article about a company with offices in Toronto and Hyderabad, India which has eating contests between the two branches over its video conferencing system.
Questionable decisions in “Gluttonous King”
A fan of male Japanese competitive eaters might feel the same way after Sunday’s “Gluttonous King” that a Seattle Seahawks fan did after the Super Bowl. In the 3rd round (barbecue shish kebabs) of “Gluttonous King,” Natsuko “Gal” Sone finished in last place, which should have resulted in elimination and a 5th place finish, but she was advanced to the 4th round anyway. She probably would have avoided a last place finish if she did not take the time to remove the meat from the skewer and eat it with chopsticks. I would appreciate if a Japanese speaker could tell me if the announcers provided a reason why “Gal” Sone was not eliminated. As far as I can tell, the official explanation appears to be that they ran out of food, but the servers seemed to have no difficulty supplying the eaters with food up until the end of the contest.
In the fourth round (salmon) two eaters were to be eliminated since no one was dropped after the previous round. At the end of that contest “Gal” Sone was neck and neck with “the Artist” and appeared to be at approximately the same level of discomfort, but the doctor removed “the Artist” from the contest, advancing Ms. Sone to the final round.
A commenter to the “Much & Fast” blog claims to be the second place finisher in the Osaka qualifier. He did not make the finals because TV Tokyo took the top four finishers from the Tokyo qualifier, enabling Tomoko Miyake to advance.
Gluttonous King Part 2 videos available
All videos for part 2 of “Gluttonous King” are now available on youtube.
TV Tokyo got youtube to remove the videos for earlier Gluttonous King / Queen shows, so the videos will probably not be available for a long period of time if you are interested in watching them.
Shirota vs. 13 girl group in cake eating contest
The singing group Morning Musume, consisting of 13 girls, had a cake eating contest against Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota in their Christmas special. The totals of all 13 girls were combined and Shirota only ate for about 5 minutes of the 10 minute contest. (I hope Shirota got paid well for his appearance)
Gluttonous King 2006 results: 1) Shirota 2) Yamamoto 3) Gal-sone
From Much & Fast
“Gluttonous King” final:
1) Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota
2) Takuya Yamamoto, fails to threepeat
3) Natsuko “Gal” Sone
4) – 6) ?
7) Tomoko Miyake – ate french fries with chopsticks while everyone else uses hands, later
drops chopsticks
Shirota has an entry about his victory in his blog.
updated R Suzuki has round by round results: Part 1, Part 2
Videos of the preliminary round can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ec4s
Part 1 – Tokyo preliminary round
Part 2 – Osaka preliminary round
Part 3 – Shirota does a restaurant’s eating challenge cheered on by his groupies
Part 4 – Yamamoto works out in a boxing gym
Part 5 – Gal Sone meditates in a Buddhist temple
Part 6 – 1st round – french fry eating contest in Hokkaido farm
189 years of Japanese competitive eating
The Asahi Shimbum has an article about the current state of Japanese competitive eating containing a preview of Sunday’s “Gluttonous King” contest. The article says an eating contest took place in 1817.
Gluttonous King 2006 to be televised October 1
TV Tokyo will televise the 2006 edition of “Gluttonous King” (more information) this Sunday. The contest is open to both male & female eaters. Yamamoto will attempt to defend his 2005 title and Gal Sone will look to better her 6th place finish from last year. Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake will also compete.
Gaijin attempt curry challenge
(from japanprobe) A clip from Japanese TV of a Jamaican and Nigerian attempting a restaurant’s 3kg curry challenge has been posted to youtube. It is claimed they both eat 6kg, but the clip jumps to an empty plate so this cannot be verified.
Food Battle Club video clips on youtube
Several clips from Food Battle Club have been uploaded to youtube. The clips include a final round contest between Kobayashi and Nobuyuki Shirota which offers indisputable video evidence that Kobayashi has lost to organisms besides black bears – Part 1 Part 2 The contest involves eating 10kg (22 lb) of curry.
There is also a clip of Iteya, who Yuko became obsessed with in “Horsemen of the Esophagus” and was driven into depression by his retirement.
This article from Asahi Weekly (and copied by a spam blog) provides a history of Japanese competitive eating before 2005 and focuses on the rise and fall of Food Battle Club Part 1 Part 2.
First round of 2005 “Gluttonous King” available on youtube
The first round of the 2005 “Gluttonous King” contest televised on TV Tokyo has been uploaded to youtube. Natsuko “Gal” Sone avoided elimination by eating 6 grams more of bread than Miyuki Iwata.
HK Standard: Sonya eats almost 10 kg (22 lb.) of food each day
The Hong Kong standard has an article about Sonya Thomas’ victory at the Whampoa Asia eating contest. In that article, Sonya is quoted as saying she eats almost 10 kg (22 lb.) of food each day. If that is accurate, then Sonya eats her bodyweight every five days. Sonya’s big Burger King meal weighs a good deal less than 22 pounds, so it would be interesting to learn what else she eats to reach that amount.
Video podcast of Sonya in Hong Kong
The South China Morning Post has a brief (about one minute) video podcast of Sonya Thomas in the semifinals of the Whampoa Asia Eating Championship where she ate 176 vegetable dumplings in 12 minutes. The podcast can also be viewed on youtube.
New Japanese competitive eating videos available on youtube
Several new videos of Japanese competitive eating programs have been posted to youtube. The 2002 rookie contest, which is over an hour long, has been uploaded in its entirety. The top two finishers in that contest were women (the runner up is quite cute) who did not compete in this year’s “Gluttonous Queen” contest. There is also footage from the New Year’s Eve competitive eaters party of Kobayashi competing aganist an unknown woman in a restaurant where sushi is delivered on conveyor belts. Some brief clips of Tomoko Miyake eating sausage have also been posted.
Sonya Thomas wins Hong Kong contest
From reuters via Crazy Legs’ Mom & Brian Seiken: Sonya Thomas won the Whampoa Asia Eating Championship by eating 17 Chinese style Lotus seed buns in 12 minutes. Johnny Wu, who finished second in last year’s contest to Takeru Kobayashi, was second with 9 buns. Charles Hardy attended and was listed as Sonya’s publicist.
Updated 4:34 pm – Hong Blog has an eyewitness account of the semifinals
Updated 8/14 12:47 am – pictures of the contest can be seen at Yahoo news
Another youtube clip of Gal Sone vs. Shirota
Another video clip of Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota’s weekly duel has been posted on youtube. The contest involves eating 5kg of udon (whatever that is) in 15 minutes.
Buffets of the subcontinent are safe (for now)
(From slashfood.com) Dale Boone was apparently not exaggerating when he described the great competitive eaters of South Asia. This article in the Hindustan Time tells about the gastronomic exploits of a man known as “Theeta” of Thrissur, India, who once ate 10kg of halwa in 10 minutes. The police have been called several times to evict “Theeta” from a buffet. Doctors have forced “Theeta” to curtail his eating following a hospitalization, so restaurants are now free to restart their all you can eat specials.
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