Escaping from the heatwave outside I walked into Nicoll’s in Perth ready to take on the biggest meal – and steak – of my life.
A 60oz rump and 16 sides – four batches of onion rings, chips, mushrooms, corn on the cob, tomatoes and two pepper sauce.
The restaurant’s challenge had been completed for the first time the previous week by professional eater and Youtube star Randy Santel.
The American completed the mammoth steak and sides with three seconds to spare of the hour-long time limit.
But how would your average, non-professional, eater and all-round regular person fare in such a contest?
Convinced that I ticked at least the first two of those boxes I headed along to Nicoll’s to find out.
The steak is massive
When Colin, owner of Nicoll’s, showed me the raw steak on a platter I nodded my head with confidence – only a small seed of doubt starting to creep into my mind.
I wanted to complete the challenge – but I definitely wanted to finish that steak.
Colin and his chef told me that not everyone had even gotten that far before.
By the time the steak arrived surrounded by the onion rings, chips and additional trimming my confidence was slowly starting to ebb away.
The beast in front of me was the the same size as five of the biggest 12oz steaks on the Nicoll’s menu I was informed.
But like Randy before me, I donned my steak eating hat (quite literally) and got to work.
Great beginnings
The first thing I can say about the steak is that it was delicious – cooked to a perfect medium.
I’ve wondered before if the actual food at these challenges were of good quality – but there was no need to worry about that in the Perth restaurant.
I’m a big onion rings fan and these were near perfect.
My confidence started to return as I tucked into the first quarter of my steak with ease.
A quick check of the timer told me I had finished that and an onion ring or two in under ten minutes.
Twenty minutes in and I had eaten half the steak and a few more onion rings – but I could feel myself starting to slow down.
The sides especially looked like a lot now – all 16 of them.
Expectation meats reality
By the time the halfway marker hit I knew I was struggling.
It was becoming hard to chew.
I had been so caught up in the amount of food I had forgotten about the need to actually physically chew it all.
The steak which had been going down with ease ten minutes earlier was now going round like a washing machine in my mouth (a lovely image I’m sure).
As the minutes ticked down I knew I had no chance.
If I hadn’t known for a fact that Randy Santel had completed this exact challenge the week before I would have said it was impossible.
I began to lose focus, not visually, but at my main task – finishing that big gigantic delicious steak.
I went for some more onion rings, some steak, a few chips.
Everything was getting covered in pepper sauce now and a sip of water with every mouthful.
I started to deeply regret the yoghurt I had for lunch.
From great heat to steak defeat
The weather outside had cooled a bit by now but I was beginning to sweat.
With ten minutes left I knew I had failed – not just the challenge but to finish the steak.
No photo can do justice to just how much steak is in that enormous slab of beef.
With a few minutes to spare I bit down on another onion ring and decided to at least finish one portion of chips.
A small victory achieved with seconds left on the clock.
But that was my only win.
With a feast of sides and few chunks of steak still sitting on the table before me, Colin and his staff assured me it wasn’t the worst effort they had seen.
By my calculations I had finished about 90% of the steak and a couple of sides.
Are you ready to take on the challenge?
So what’s it like taking on the Nicoll’s Steakhouse challenge?
It’s harder than I probably expected – but I do think there’s a better attempt in me.
If you fancy yourself, it’s worth seeing if you can get the steak down alone – and then go for the sides.
At least you know the food is good.
Retrospectively, I think I was so focussed on the amount of food I forgot to adopt a good speed eating technique.
And so I take my hat (inspired by him) off to Randy Santel, getting that amount of food down in that time is incredible.
And I will return to Nicoll’s Steakhouse – as a matter of fact I’ve a table booked for next week.
But this time I’ll be eating something slightly smaller from the menu.
