If dogs could speak...

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

100 pork buns, 83 steamed dumplings and 53 hot dogs
What's the difference between the above foods? Probably nothing. You could argue that pork buns and dumplings are the Chinese equivalent of the American hot dog. Horrible things go into them all.

The real answer is that they were what Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi ate to win his eating contests. Back on Independence Day this year, he won Nathan's Famous hot dog eating extravaganza in New York for the fifth straight time. Then this past weekend, he entered another competition in Hong Kong.

This was a two-day affair. On Saturday, he downed 83 vegetarian dumplings in eight minutes, easily beating 30 challengers. He said that he hadn't even reached his full capacity because he wanted to "reserve room" for the final round. The next day, he went up against the six next best competitors in a contest that featured roast pork buns which were supposedly harder to swallow. That apparently didn't faze him, as he again defeated his opponents by effortlessly devouring 100 pork buns in 12 minutes.

What's even more amazing, was that he ate them all using chopsticks. Many people would still be trying to stab their first dumpling after 10 minutes.