Bokampers Beast Burger Challenge! 7-25-14
I intended to finish and post this on Tuesday, but I have felt so worn out lately. I wasn’t doing too well and took some Benadryl since I was itchy, but I fell asleep on the floor twice and that was it for that night. Wednesday I went back to the pool and did some running around. I started typing and fell asleep in the middle of that, around 9 pm. I have been slowly getting it done, sorry for the delay, but here it is!
Weekend for 3-19-16 and 3-20-16
Through out the day it was roughly a 50% chance of rain for Saturday and I was really wondering if paintball was going to even be a possibility, because I didn’t particularly want to run around in the rain, but everything worked out in the end. I started off by going to the paintball store to pickup my newly hydro tested air tank and found out it had some leaks. I got to the paintball field earlier than everyone else, so I spent some time working on getting my tank working. After taking it apart and 10$ worth of replacement parts, my tank was as good as new and I was really happy about that. Alright, let’s get into some pictures!
Getting setup and ready to play! As you can see behind me, there are people over there playing right now. The weather is looking great so far; HAH at that 50% chance of rain.
Everyone else finally got here and they are getting ready to go. Right as we were ready to play our first game, the rain started to come down, and it came down HARD. The rain got the last laugh as it went on and off for about 45 mins and I was glad that we weren’t in the middle of playing while it did. Things got a little muddy and wet, but nothing that was going to stop us.
In the heat of battle, sometimes things just happen. I was in the middle of reloading and saw someone start running so there was no time to worry about closing my hopper. This is my favorite spot to go to, because I feel that it has a major height advantage against a lot of the opposing spots in the field.
Group photo! We are ready to roll!
This was me after the last game. My pants were shifted a little more to the right; I was hit in both of my thighs so I was close to having a REALLY bad day. This right here is why paintball is dangerous!
A lot of things actually happened today at the paintball field, some of which were funny and other things got WAY out of control. Lets start off with the 1v1 between Bert and Nicky. You know how things go, people start talking and what better way to settle things than to take it straight to the paintball field? Nothing serious though, everyone just having fun. The 1v1 in my opinion got a little wild and the two guys really shot each other up a whole lot more than you normally should, but they both came out laughing and smiling, so all is well in the end. Bert got shot maybe 4 times, but Nicky... he got lit up lol. He was covered in paint and so was his gun; he seriously had a full on paint job done and after the game he went over to the sink and pretty much took a shower.
Moving on from the fun and games, not everything is always pleasant. Today was another case where some people decided to be idiots and ruin it for everyone. I was siting out of one game and while in the seating area, I heard a whole lot of shooting going off outside of one of the smaller fields and one of the staff yelled over and said the police were on the way and got on his phone to presumably call the police. I wasn’t sure what happened, but various people started walking from the field. From what I overheard and saw, it turns out there was some kind of argument and someone shot a whole lot of paintballs at someone because of it. In the process of this, they shot someone’s girlfriend a whole bunch of times and they were pissed. This guy and two other guys confronted the people that did the shooting, except there were around 8 of them and a huge fight erupted. Suffice to say, the three guys literally got stomped on and everyone jumped in to break up the fight. They larger group ran off and the police came and one of the people were hurt bad enough that they ended up calling an ambulance to take him off. It was very unfortunate to see a bunch of immature idiots completely ruin the day.
Moving forward, fishing was cancelled due to 5 ft waves, which would have been VERY unpleasant, but it by no means meant that I had to spend my day indoors. It was also 50% chance of rain, and since my sister and her boyfriend were not going to take out their boat as well, so I did a lot of relaxing today. It looked so nice and warm outside, so I went for a walk, which I did get a very brief amount of rain, but I ended up going swimming as well. The water was slightly chilly, but once I got in and started swimming around, everything was really nice. I finished off by relaxing in the hot tub for a bit, then walked home. it was a great way to relax and enjoy the day. The day did not end here though, this was just the morning and afternoon warm up. My friend James called me last week and we made plans to go eat somewhere this Sunday and I felt we were past due for a visit to you know where, the one and only.... CHOW TIME!
Oh look at it, my favorite buffet, busy as always bringing on feelings of nostalgia. Typical for a Sunday night, we had about a 20 min wait, but I didn’t mind, I was just happy to be here.
Check out all of that healthy delicious fried food! Unfortunately the roast beef was way off today and well done opposed to the usual medium rare. It was still soft, but just overcooked for my liking.
I decided it was time to hit up the hibachi section. I really enjoy the freshly cooked meals with whatever I feel like having cooked. As you can see, my plates were monstrous and a lot of people commented on it.
Here is my cooked shrimp stir fry as well as some ribs and some seafood soup. I felt bad, because I had toned down my eating and I got used to eating regular sized meals, so I just couldn’t really handle anymore food at this point. I ate some fruit and had a big full belly and I was thoroughly satisfied. I wanted to eat of the other items I never got to, but that’s ok, there is always next time.
While I was eating, James went to talk to the manager and he had some interesting things to say. His brother is the owner of the buffet and he put a lot of money into renovating the restaurant and he owns around 25 restaurants so far, all of which are successful. Seeing everything that is going on at this buffet, it shows why they have been successful, but on the other end of it, it’s going to be VERY hard for any of the other buffets in the area to compete. They have a far cheaper price and offer more food choices than any of the other buffets nearby. Their ultimate goal is to open 90 successful restaurants, so they are roughly a third of the way there. Also, he said that they buy nearby housing and provide a place to stay for the staff, which is very respectable of them.
So let’s get to the food challenge! I actually attempted this challenge many years ago, but this was way back when I just “ate a lot” and didn’t really do any actual types of eating challenges. At the same time, this was also my first restaurant challenge. Most of the challenges I encountered were against friends, or just eating for hours at a buffet. The Beast burger challenge is no joke at all, it is 4 lbs of meat, 4 eggs, 5 slices of cheese and 6 strips of bacon with a massive and overly ridiculous bun.
Alright, let me explain the entire scenario that led up to doing the challenge. I knew about a week in advance that one of the guys I was working with would be retiring and that everyone was heading to Bokampers after work for a last get together. I was highly considering attempting the challenge again, so I started to prepare as best as I could. As the days grew closer to the challenge, I tried to see if anyone would do the challenge with me, but absolutely no one would even consider it. My preparation was going alright, I did the best I could given the time I had.
Here we go, it was the day I had been waiting for. I had a smoothie for lunch and that was it for the day. As work ended, everyone headed over to Bokampers as planned and once I got there, I met up and said hello to everyone. I sat down peacefully at a table and the waiter came by and asked what I wanted. Here we go, it was GAME TIME! I confidently said: “Hello, I would like to do The Beast challenge.” It took a while to finish cooking and once it did, everyone was just in complete awe at the size of the burger. I was feeling good and absolutely starving and ready to eat. After everyone finished taking their photos, I dug straight into the burger.
I used a large steak knife and started cutting up the burger and eating down mouthful after mouthful. Along with my meal I had water and some iced tea to help change up the flavor and get the food down. For the first 70% I was completely cruising and eating the burger like nothing. I was chatting, posing for pictures, and just having a great time. Everyone around me was so excited and cheering me on and just in disbelief at how much food I had already eaten. Being fairly new working this job, none of these guys really knew me and thought that I was just trying to show off and that there was NO WAY I would even come close to eating this burger. So far, I have certainly proved them wrong.
I continued to eat, but my jaws were quite unhappy with the toughness of the bread.I began soaking the outside of the bread in liquid to soften it up. At the 80% mark, I definitely started to feel full, but I kept pushing on, eating bite after bite. The food also started to taste disgusting, so I mixed it up a little with the pickle, more ketchup, and my iced tea.
I was really slowing down and once I hit the 90% mark, I started to chew and swallow in a way that I was not tasting the food, because it was so terribly repulsive to eat at this point. At the 95% mark, I really couldn’t stand it anymore (this is as far as I got the first time I tried as well). If you look at the pictures up top, the second from the last one where I have my arm up in the air, I had given up. I said forget it, I am DONE! I probably had about 5 mins or so left and it no longer seemed feasible. Even though I was ready to give up, the guys with me were not ready to let me give up.
Everyone cheered me on and said: “just shove the rest of the food in your mouth and you’re done!” Yea.... easier said than done lol. I did end up shoving about half in my mouth and slowwwwwwly chewed and swallowed it down. As I was nearly finishing that disastrous mouth full of food, the waiter came back. He was even more excited than everyone else when he saw what I had left. He said: “I have never seen anyone get this close! You can do it!” I told him I couldn’t and I was tapping out and essentially out of time. He said “tell you what, just get the rest of that in your mouth, don’t throw up, and I will give you 5 more mins to swallow it down.”
Looking at the last picture, you can see that my cheeks are puffed up full of food. I shoved the last bit of food in my mouth and once again SLOWWWWWLY chewed on it and swallowed little bits and pieces at a time. It was such an absolutely terrible experience and I don’t have anymore pictures after this, but he went ahead and took the tray and confirmed that I finished it. My meal was free and he gave me a card for their PR guy and said to send over a picture to have it put on the wall for completion. It was an adventure in itself walking back to my car and driving myself home. Once I waddled over there, I definitely just sat down in my car for a good 10 mins.
Once I got home, I sent an email over with a picture as requested and waited for a response. A few days later, I sent a follow up email, and still received no response. I went back to the restaurant and no picture, no response, nothing. I had to follow up with multiple managers over the next year and a half as I was told they were out of plaques, email this person, email that person, and some other excuses. Finally I think they actually put my picture on the wall, but I have not gone by to actually look. This food challenge certainly pushed every limit I had in terms of eating and it was not pleasant at all. Would I do it again? Probably not, unless I actually do some training and build up the confidence to feel like I truly can eat the burger without as much struggle as I had last time.
