The rules are simple: pay $150, eat a burrito within an hour, own 10 percent of the restaurant. The restaurant team at Don Chingon, a Park Slope Brooklyn taqueria, told Food and Wine, “Giving away the restaurant seemed like the perfect prize. If you are going to eat a massive amount of food and gain 25-30 lbs. in a single sitting you deserve real compensation. Some restaurants will put your name on the wall. We’ll just give you the wall.”
Back up. $150 for a burrito? And it weighs 25 to 30 pounds? Daaaaaaamn.
As you may have surmised, this isn’t just a normal burrito. It’s the Gran Chingon (“huge f*cker”), a 30-pound burrito constructed of a tortilla three-and-a-half feet in diameter and stuffed with chicken, steak, carnitas, chorizo, cheese, rice, beans, and salsa — basically, everything but the kitchen sink. Actually, maybe also the kitchen sink. Details weren’t available by press time.
The scariest part about this deal is the disclaimer the restaurant makes in the contest rules: “Don Chingon will not accept any responsibility for death or illness.” Which is a very real possibility, when you consider the fact that the competitive eater Joey Chestnut only had to eat 14-pounds of burritos to secure the world record for burrito-eating back in May. (Okay, so he did it in 10 minutes. But the man is a professional!) Add to that the fact that you’re not allowed to take bathroom breaks, and that “discharge of bodily fluids of any kind will result in forfeit,” and this seems like a perfect recipe for a whole lot of pain.
Still interested in partaking despite all the blaring alarm sirens going off in that last paragraph? You’re going to have to eat fast to down the burrito in an hour. Our very unscientific burrito-eating calculations tell us that, at one ounce per bite, eight bites of burrito are required per minute, which means 7.5 seconds per bite. Maybe you can do better than one ounce per bite. But keep in mind the inevitable slowing-down that will occur the further you get into the meal.
Translation: no one is winning this prize, it’s a total marketing play.
Oh and there’s one final rule: you’ll also have to drink a margarita made with ghost pepper. Which seems marginal when compared to the pain and/or death that will probably result after your stomach ruptures from too much burrito. Have fun!
