The third issue of IBCoMagazine has just been released. You may have had a chance to read it or look through it at least. Or you may have totally missed that memo and not even realised (how could you?!?). No worries though, for this week’s blog post I will touch upon one of the articles from the magazine; The XXL Burger IBCoMpetition.
This issue was centered on life outside of the IBCoM programme with hints, tips and tricks as to what to do in Rotterdam. My colleague Sandra Post and I came to an idea, with the help of our other IBCoMagazine team members (of course), to set up a burger eating competition at Eetcafe Concordia, as they are known for their 500-gram massive burger challenge.
Our idea was to get an IBCoM student and an IBA student to challenge one another into eating this gigantic burger to settle once and for all which international course is better. Our managing editor Reyhaan King volunteered as tribute and also dragged his housemate Mathias Günther (the IBA student) forth in participating.
After a few discussions with Eetcafe Concordia, it was finally here; Monday 27th of March 2017, the day of the XXL Burger IBCoMpetition. First Lloyd Schox, barman and co-owner of the establishment, repeated the rules to both gentlemen:
- Eat the entire burger with the side of fries and the salad in 30 minutes and you don’t have to pay for it
- You are only allowed water to help you and a condiment of choice for your fries
- If you go to the bathroom during the 30 minutes you are disqualified
About 15 minutes later, Lloyd and the cook walk out with two huge burgers of about 30 centimeters in height with a mountain of fries beside it. The timer was set and 3, 2, 1… off both boys went immediately stuffing their faces with the biggest chucks of meat, cheese and bacon ever seen.
This eating rage continued for a full 15 minutes, when Matthias already started to slow down. He was skipping between his fries and his burger not making any real progress within the pressure of the time. Rey, however was still going strong and making sure that he was hydrated enough between every 4/5 bites or so.
At the 20-minute mark, Matthias was really struggling to even take a bite, but Rey was in the full lead as he had almost finished his burger and was now moving on to the fries by smothering them with mayonnaise.
25 minutes in and Matthias gave up to go to the bathroom, while Rey was working his way through his fries. He did start to realize now however, that in the time that was left he wasn’t going to finish the entire plate. So when the timer hit zero, both gentlemen had not succeeded in beating the Burger Challenge. However, in light of who was disqualified and who ate the most, it was established that Reyhaan was the winner! IBCoM is the best after all!
The funniest thing about the whole IBCoMpetition was the aftermath. Both Matthias and Rey had seriously gotten the meat sweats and were now holding on to their stomachs as if they were pregnant. Rey even lay down on the couches as he felt the weight of that amount of meat, cheese, bacon and fries settling in this stomach.
All of this, including the hilarious (for us, not for Rey and Matthias) aftermath, was filmed by our own art director, Joshua Kruter. I would highly recommend watching it to see all of these events unfold. Also don’t forget to check out Sandra’s take on this marvelous day in our magazine’s latest issue on a life outside of IBCoM (*whispers* also check out all of the other articles while you are at it!).
Will you be next to take on the Concordia Burger Challenge? Can you make it up on the Wall of Fame?