Saturday, March 14, 2009

Contest Report - The Whip Scotch Egg Eating Contest



I decided I'd like to do a contest today, so I went to eatfeats.com to see what was going on this weekend. I called for information on a wing contest in Jersey that was happening at an event in a ski lodge but they had no information on the prize or really anything for that matter.
So the next closest place happened to be Philadelphia, PA, which turned out to actually be Coatsville, PA, just outside of Philly. The food? Scotch Eggs. This is a scotch egg ->

A hard boiled egg surrounded by ground pork and then deep fried. Eggs have always been a food I was concerned about competing with, let alone for 12 minutes, which was this contests time. Not only that but the deep fried with pork... I figured with all the other foods I had done, eggs couldn't have been as bad as I'd made them out to be so I decided to give it a shot. Jessica came with me and we got a ride from my aunt and made a road trip out of it.

The ride took about 2.5 hours and we almost got lost because the street changed names and mapquest didn't alert us to this, but we got there just in time.
Before we left I made sure that I called to confirm everything and give my entry. Apparently they thought it was weird that someone from New York would hear about their contest and googled me and seemed to be pretty excited I was coming. The staff at The Whip (named for the whipping turns that lead you to the establishment) could not have been any nicer. The owner, chef, MC and timekeepers (whose names I forget unfortunately) were nothing but gracious and great hosts.

The bar itself was very nicely set up. TVs playing rugby matches, modern decor, etc. The contest was held in the patio area at the back of the bar. As we were standing around, I sensed I was being sized up by the competition and since my reputation had preceded me, I'm sure assumptions were made. At any rate, the contest finally began. There was room for 10 people but only 5 others managed to sign up. I set up my water, set up the mp3 player and got going once start was called. I put on my signature speed and was done with the first tray pretty quickly. At this point I saw that I was pretty far ahead and took a break. I slowed up and then got into the next tray. At this point, I only have one side of the headphones in my ear and while I'm eating, I don't realize that time is crawling. It seems slow as hell as they counted down the minutes. I cracked jokes and made people laugh as I'm downing the eggs. Now, as my experience has been with previous contests where I'm the favorite and everyone else is an "amateur", people are pretty good humored and like to joke around too. Most of the crowd was into it, as was the staff, but it seemed as though my jokes might have come off a bit cocky and I sensed the other "amateur contestants" might have been put off. At any rate, I was feeling full and I hung back but one of the "local amateurs" was catching up and I continued to push for the win. I congratulated him on a good job and walked away. I waited on the owner to produce the winnings for the contest and as I tried to further congratulate the second and third place contestants but they were none too happy that I showed up.

We were all going to have a few drinks and then go home but the vibe kinda creeped me out and felt threatening, so I thanked the owner for having me and we hightailed it back to Brooklyn. More important than the contest was the time spent with family.

2 comments:

  1. yuck yuck yuck...congrats and everything but...yuck, yuck, yuck,

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  2. Dude! I'm from Brooklyn AND down the road from The Whip in Coatsville. I live in Brooklyn now and moved from there, but I would go eat at The Whip for so long. PLUS, I am working on Science Impossible, the show you went on. So this is just hilarious to me that we've been to so many of the same places.

    Congrats on winning!

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