Bangkok's best belly-busters
Four restaurants that dare customers to beat the clock for big eating
INSPIRED BY those crazy Guinness Book eating contests (as opposed to His Majesty the King's sufficiency theory), quite a few Bangkok restaurants are challenging customers to gobble down huge platters of record size in record time. Their reward - apart from being more than sufficiently stuffed - is a free meal and maybe even a prize.
We've all seen the newsreels of the Coney Island hot-dog-swallowing race and the Japanese TV shows where people churn through a stack of hamburgers or a mammoth bowl of ramen noodles. It's pretty exciting and it looks like fun, so Thai restaurateurs have added "supersize" dishes to their menus and issued tummy-testing dares.
Sri Lueng Potchana on Soi Phaholyothin Rama Theatre in Saphan Kwai has been around for 33 years and is famous for its delectable boiled chicken rice and noodles with steamed pork in herbal soup. But until last May, it never had anything on the menu to compare with "Khao Man Kai Giant".
Pipat Benjadamrongtham, one of the offspring of the restaurant's founders, invites diners to try finishing it off in 60 minutes or less. If they can, they don't have to pay for it - and he'll give them a plaque commemorating their achievement.
It's no small feat: You're looking at two kilograms of steamed rice and a kilogram of boiled chicken in curdled blood. Dither over it for more than an hour and it will cost you Bt500.
"I saw a Japanese game show where the contestants had to eat a big bowl of ramen," says Pipat. "That's what inspired me. I started with Jumbo Chicken Rice for Bt100, which everyone loves. People come in with their friends to share it with - it's good for two or three people.
"So then I wanted to serve something even bigger and more exciting. That's when we came up with Khaoman Kai Giant, which is also now a top seller."
If it's any consolation to your bloated belly, Pipat sticks to a "healthy" family recipe for the platter, using chickens raised on herbs at an organic farm. So it's wonderfully tender - and chemical-free. It shares the plate with the best jasmine rice, from Thung Kula Rong Hai.
"We've had three winners so far," Pipat says, "and two of them were quite slender women, but they could eat a lot and really quickly - it totally surprised me!"
At Gold Curry Bangkok, a vivid orange shophouse on Sukhumvit Soi 39, a two-kilogram bowl of Gold Katsu Curry Rice is free if you empty it in 15 minutes - but Bt699 if you can't.
That's just kids' stuff, though: The "pros" have their eye on the prize awaiting anyone who can finish off a 10-kilogram bowl in an hour. The "ante" for playing is Bt2,899, but if you win you get Bt40,000 in cash!
No one has ever collected the prize, which is really saying something considering that Gold Curry is a Japanese restaurant chain and the one in Bangkok attracts a lot of Japanese expatriates. Neither they nor the Thais lured in by the great pork curry with multiple choices of toppings have risen to the challenge.
"A crowd of office workers will order a tray of Gold Katsu Curry Rice to share," says co-owner Shuhei Gyoda. "We also offer normal portions starting at Bt160."
Over at Pol Kuay Teow Boran in Din Daeng, you have 30 minutes to polish off a bowl of Kote Sajai (the name means "extremely satisfied") if you want to see the Bt800 lunch bill torn up. This is a monstrous bowl of spicy noodles in red soup with salmon, mussels, dory fish, fish dumplings, fish balls, shrimp balls, pork balls and boiled eggs.
"The Kote Sajai offer comes with the slogan 'Why do we have to do the same thing as other people?'" says Nopadol Thongprathueng, running a restaurant that's popular for its noodles and tom yum made from traditional Sukhothai and Ratchaburi recipes.
"My parent started out with a noodle booth at temple fairs 20 years ago," says Nopadol Thongprathueng. "We opened this place two years ago and another branch on Rama V Road last month."
Students at Chulalongkorn University pack into Kinniji at the U Centre on Soi Chula 42 for the wide range of donburi Japanese rice. Quite a few have attempted the Kinniji Don challenge - and quite a few have mastered it, getting their names posted on a bulletin board of honour.
Normally Bt599, it's free if they get through a kilogram of rice - with chashu pork, chicken karaage, shrimp tempura, pork, salmon and shrimp katsu, and salmon and saba teriyaki - in 15 minutes.
There's also a dare for duos that offers a Bt1,000 gift voucher for licking clean two platters, as well as for trios and quintets.
"The Kinniji Don is a gimmick to pull in young customers, and they enjoy it, but I use only top-quality ingredients, like salmon from Norway and maguro fish from Japan," says Perapat Tunlayadechanont, founder of the Facebook food-review page Eat with Pete. He opened Kinniji last February.
"I had no cooking skills, but I wanted to open my own small restaurant because I love to eat! I spent five days learning basics from a Japanese chef and then created my own recipes for easy-to-eat Japanese dishes that students could enjoy."
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We've all seen the newsreels of the Coney Island hot-dog-swallowing race and the Japanese TV shows where people churn through a stack of hamburgers or a mammoth bowl of ramen noodles. It's pretty exciting and it looks like fun, so Thai restaurateurs have added "supersize" dishes to their menus and issued tummy-testing dares.
Sri Lueng Potchana on Soi Phaholyothin Rama Theatre in Saphan Kwai has been around for 33 years and is famous for its delectable boiled chicken rice and noodles with steamed pork in herbal soup. But until last May, it never had anything on the menu to compare with "Khao Man Kai Giant".
Pipat Benjadamrongtham, one of the offspring of the restaurant's founders, invites diners to try finishing it off in 60 minutes or less. If they can, they don't have to pay for it - and he'll give them a plaque commemorating their achievement.
It's no small feat: You're looking at two kilograms of steamed rice and a kilogram of boiled chicken in curdled blood. Dither over it for more than an hour and it will cost you Bt500.
"I saw a Japanese game show where the contestants had to eat a big bowl of ramen," says Pipat. "That's what inspired me. I started with Jumbo Chicken Rice for Bt100, which everyone loves. People come in with their friends to share it with - it's good for two or three people.
"So then I wanted to serve something even bigger and more exciting. That's when we came up with Khaoman Kai Giant, which is also now a top seller."
If it's any consolation to your bloated belly, Pipat sticks to a "healthy" family recipe for the platter, using chickens raised on herbs at an organic farm. So it's wonderfully tender - and chemical-free. It shares the plate with the best jasmine rice, from Thung Kula Rong Hai.
"We've had three winners so far," Pipat says, "and two of them were quite slender women, but they could eat a lot and really quickly - it totally surprised me!"
At Gold Curry Bangkok, a vivid orange shophouse on Sukhumvit Soi 39, a two-kilogram bowl of Gold Katsu Curry Rice is free if you empty it in 15 minutes - but Bt699 if you can't.
That's just kids' stuff, though: The "pros" have their eye on the prize awaiting anyone who can finish off a 10-kilogram bowl in an hour. The "ante" for playing is Bt2,899, but if you win you get Bt40,000 in cash!
No one has ever collected the prize, which is really saying something considering that Gold Curry is a Japanese restaurant chain and the one in Bangkok attracts a lot of Japanese expatriates. Neither they nor the Thais lured in by the great pork curry with multiple choices of toppings have risen to the challenge.
"A crowd of office workers will order a tray of Gold Katsu Curry Rice to share," says co-owner Shuhei Gyoda. "We also offer normal portions starting at Bt160."
Over at Pol Kuay Teow Boran in Din Daeng, you have 30 minutes to polish off a bowl of Kote Sajai (the name means "extremely satisfied") if you want to see the Bt800 lunch bill torn up. This is a monstrous bowl of spicy noodles in red soup with salmon, mussels, dory fish, fish dumplings, fish balls, shrimp balls, pork balls and boiled eggs.
"The Kote Sajai offer comes with the slogan 'Why do we have to do the same thing as other people?'" says Nopadol Thongprathueng, running a restaurant that's popular for its noodles and tom yum made from traditional Sukhothai and Ratchaburi recipes.
"My parent started out with a noodle booth at temple fairs 20 years ago," says Nopadol Thongprathueng. "We opened this place two years ago and another branch on Rama V Road last month."
Students at Chulalongkorn University pack into Kinniji at the U Centre on Soi Chula 42 for the wide range of donburi Japanese rice. Quite a few have attempted the Kinniji Don challenge - and quite a few have mastered it, getting their names posted on a bulletin board of honour.
Normally Bt599, it's free if they get through a kilogram of rice - with chashu pork, chicken karaage, shrimp tempura, pork, salmon and shrimp katsu, and salmon and saba teriyaki - in 15 minutes.
There's also a dare for duos that offers a Bt1,000 gift voucher for licking clean two platters, as well as for trios and quintets.
"The Kinniji Don is a gimmick to pull in young customers, and they enjoy it, but I use only top-quality ingredients, like salmon from Norway and maguro fish from Japan," says Perapat Tunlayadechanont, founder of the Facebook food-review page Eat with Pete. He opened Kinniji last February.
"I had no cooking skills, but I wanted to open my own small restaurant because I love to eat! I spent five days learning basics from a Japanese chef and then created my own recipes for easy-to-eat Japanese dishes that students could enjoy."
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