The Challenge: Eat a large bowl of their spiciest ramen, the Special #2, in under 30 minutes.
As I waited for my bowl of ramen to arrive, I sat with Diddy and Chomscar (aka Aditya and Omar) and watched as a man nearby struggled with the challenge. It looked like every bite he took was more painful than the last, and he finally succumbed to the heat and gave up. He and his family wished me the best of luck, convinced I would have a similarly difficult time. I had walked into the challenge thinking it would be a piece of cake, my recent experience with the Buffalo Wild Wings challenge giving me a little cockiness. But watching this man struggle put the fear right back in me. Inspiring stuff, to be sure.
I got my bowl, and tried to size it up. The first few tastes weren't bad at all, except it was a smoking hot temperature. About ten minutes in, I really hadn't done much damage. Diddy got me a cup of ice, and I put a few cubes in to cool it down. After this, I was able to go to town. That's when the spice started to get to me. It wasn't all that spicy all at once, like the wings in Santa Clara, but a slow and permeating spice that built up to a roaring crescendo. 15 minutes in, and a good chunk of food down, I started to get the shakes, the sweats, and my palms started going numb. I thought I might fail my first spice challenge. The quantity was getting to me, and so was the spice. Things looked bad.
But then a group of people sitting to my right started chanting for me. Re-inspired, I took up the bowl and downed as much fiery liquid as I could.
The bowl wasn't as deep as I had thought, and I was re-energized. I took a minute to let my mouth cool a little, and then pushed through the end of the bowl to the cheers of the entire restaurant. And now my picture hangs "eternally" (a month?) on the Orochon Wall of Bravery. A fiery success!
Fun Fact #1 - the group to my right who pushed me through the end were big Man v Food fans and had traveled to LA with the partial purpose of visiting the restaurants Adam had gone to. They were so thrilled that someone was doing and beat the challenge while they were there that we had a 10 minute photo shoot with them after I had bought some milk.
Fun Fact #2 - This is by far the worst I've felt post challenge. Lets just say... fire in, fire out, fire out, fire out, fire out.
Spice Challenges: 3-0!
Overall: 4-6
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