Christian Little

People often associate Las Vegas with excess and over indulgence and we could certainly see their point when we heard about Joey Chestnut! This eating machine made the Vegas headlines when he took part in the first ever Martorano’s Masters Meatball Eating Championship. You didn’t read the headline wrong, it was a meatball eating contest! The owner of the restaurant where the competition was held came up with the idea, but originally was undecided as to whether to choose cheese steak or meatballs. They have had really good reports about their meatballs. During 2007 Gourmet magazine said they had the best meatballs.

Joey Chestnut’s efforts have even managed to break the World Record meatball consumption when he amazingly ate 50 meatballs weighing 6.25lbs in a staggering time of ten minutes. The competition was held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and was labelled as a Major League Eating-sanctioned competition. The competition prize wasn’t to be sniffed at either because the winner was set to take home $1500. If you thought that the result was unexpected then you would be wrong, as Joey is quite the athlete in the field of competitive eating. He has been known to seize the championship in competitions featuring chicken, pizza and Hotdogs!

One rule of the competition was that they weren’t allowed to use their hands and had to use utensils! The six foot 218 lb Chestnut grabbed the title by just one ball as the second place was taken by Pat ‘deep dish’ Bertolli who consumed 49 of the meaty treats. A surprising outsider took the third place in the form of Sonya Thomas who weighed in at a flyweight of just 105 pounds but managed to eat 42 meatballs. Certainly a competitive eating champion in the making we think, or someone who was very hungry after her time on the poker tables!

She should maybe consider playing poker at home. That way she could eat and play until her heart is content. Rakeback, Full Tilt Rakeback and Pokerstars Rakeback are all games she could sign up to. Of course if she ate and played at home for too long, I can’t see her weight staying at 105 pounds for very long!