WE'LL PROBABLY GET BANNED FROM THIS BUFFET, BUT IT'S SO WORTH IT
Today our design team pulled me into the conference room to get my input on our next inner-office eating challenge. They're the biggest fans of our eating contests, but not always the biggest eaters (even though they always have great snacks in their meetings).
Their proposal: A friday lunch trip to the local Jumbo Chinese buffet armed with nothing but a kitchen scale and large appetite. Whoever eats the most food in 30 minutes -- as measured by pounds and rounded to the nearest ounce -- would be declared the winner. I immediately agreed that it was an awesome idea. It's one that I'd considered in the past but never got around to getting off the ground. No date for the showdown has been set, but it'll probably happen in two to four weeks.Talk soon turned to strategy. The obvious one being to consume dense foods that offer the most weight, yet take up the least amount of room in the stomach. Which options fit that category is anyone's guess, although rice and noodles were ruled out immediately. For the record, the buffet boasts one of the largest selections in central Pennsylvania. News articles published when it opened claimed it offered more than 200 items. It looks like a little personal research is required for this one. Bring on the General Tso's!
posted by Dave S. at 5:53 PM
14 Comments:
How many items do you think were at the pre-wingbowl buffet? Had to be close to 200.
Wow, there is a nice competition. It's like the Supermarket Sweep of the CE world. They always grab their limit of hams on that show.
I would propose that you make a one plate limit for any one item.
One more thing, make sure you weigh the plate itself to deduct it from each weigh in.
9:53 PM
Yeah, we're going to weigh the plate before and after (deducting the "after" weight to determine the total eaten).
Some people are thinking about eating nothing but soup or drinking lots of water, which feels sort of cheap. I think a bowl of soup at the last minute will go down easy and help add a few ounces to the total, but I don't plan to make it my core strategy. I'm an eater, not a drinker.
Actually, I don't think we're weighing soda and drinks, so we'll probably have to think about our liquid consumption throughout the half hour.
7:54 AM
include the soup in the one plate maximum of each item, and that should even it out.
8:26 AM
a way around it would be to have rounds.
OK this is the salad round...everyone can eat all the salad they want for the next 10 minutes
then a soup round
then a meat round
then the jello round
10:01 AM
scratch that. I was thinking and part of the fun strategy will be for people decising for themselves what types of food to eat.
still you might want to put a limit on soup.
for diversity you can say that each plate must have at least 2 different items on it.
10:05 AM
When you mentioned the scale, I thought you would be weighing yourselves (I guess I didn't read the word "kitchen" very carefully). How accurate would that be? Measuring yourselves before and after?
Anyway, dense foods would be anything fried, right? Like egg rolls or dumplings or something, thought that's tricky because the grease will make you feel full fast.
Oh man, y'll are going to have some serious MSG hangovers!
11:08 AM
Yo Dave,
We do something like that at a mongolian bbq place here. But we dispense with the weighing of each plate and stuff. We just weigh before going in and then right after coming out, uh, of the restaurant. Weighing each plate and deducting and scoring in the restaurant just ends up slowing you down!
12:06 PM
Liz and Skinnyboy, I think the weighing each person should be a really acurate measure, and would keep from slowing everyone down. Is there a "no bathroom break" rule in the contest?
12:29 PM
Interesting idea about weighing bodies instead of plates. I'm a stickler for details though and I'd be afraid the human scales wouldn't give us the down-to-the-ounce accuracy I crave.
I don't think the weigh in of each plate at the table will slow us down too much, especially with a designated recorder (someone who isn't participating in the contest).
I like Steak's idea about no soup (or a two bowl limit) and mandatory diversity per plate. I also agree with Carey that we need a no bathroom breaks rule. It's only 30 minutes...we can hold it.
As for "dense" foods, what about meats? Would the excess of proteins be too filling?
12:57 PM
I would fill up on the carbs if I were you. Digested quicker, dense, and easy to get down. My choice? Yakasoba. Minimum protein, because of the sweats and wall, and chewing difficulty.
1:08 PM
Another crazy idea on the Dave front. You know Bill is still waiting on the hot dog per inning senators game.
3:23 PM
hmmm, that sounds almost as good as a Hot dog per out Phillies game.
5:54 PM
We should definitely do that at a Senators game soon!
That idea is actually a hot dog in the first inning, two in the second, three in the third and so on. The challenge is to see who can last the longest. Eat through all 9 innings and you'll have consumed 45 dogs. I just hope to make it through the sixth (21 dogs).
It's cheaper at minor league stadiums, like the only in Harrisburg, because it's only $1.50 per dog.
10:00 AM
Gives new meaning to the Seventh Inning Stretch, ha!
7:46 PM
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