While gluttons for punishment — and just plain gluttons — lined up for ramen burgers in Williamsburg on Saturday, another foodie fiasco was playing out on the Lower East Side. East Village Filipino restaurants Jeepney and Maharlika hosted their second annual balut eating contest at the Hester Street Fair.
Josh Lucas (Courtesy: Maharlika/Jeepney)
Last year, Wayne Algenio chomped down 18 fertilized duck eggs in 5 minutes. Not an easy feat when you consider that even the loudest and proudest of carnivores have trouble slurping down just one of these partially formed birdies (some of them have beaks, feathers, and bulging eyes that seem to say, “Why did you boil me alive?”).
But this year, Algenio returned to defend his balut belt and more than doubled his record, redeeming himself for losing to Kobayashi during Hester’s 4th of July hot-dog eating contest. And afterwards, dude was like, “I’m still hungry.”
The balut belt. (Photo courtesy Hester Street Fair.)
Various reports (including Maharlika’s own Twitter feed) have Algenio eating 27 eggs, but when we e-mailed Maharlika’s Nicole Ponseca, she set the record straight: “The winner did 37 not 27 balut in five minutes… just upped the ew factor.”
Upped it indeed. If all of this is grossing you out, just focus on that photo of Josh Lucas, and definitely don’t watch the video above.