The descent into maki madness

Jessica does her best not to hurl. (Click through the photos to see how she did under pressure.) (Credit: Amanda Krotki)

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When little girls dream, they wish for a purple unicorn, Rocker Ken doll to come alive and say, "Cut my hair, get your ass in the Ferrari and let's go drinking," two six-inch logs of raw fish encased in seaweed and the opportunity to swallow those sushi weights almost whole so they can beat competitors in a speed sushi-eating contest.

Dreams came true folks—sort of—during RA Sushi's Maki Madness on March 22. The March Madness-style competitive eating event asked 40 grossos to eat two, uncut tootsy maki rolls (made of crab meat, shrimp and cucumber topped with crunchy tempura bits) as fast as possible in multiple heats. The winners of each bracket progressed to the next round until two finalists battled for bragging rights and 12 $50 RA gift certificates.

Two weeks before the competition, I accepted the challenge to participate when no other Metromixer was up for the glory and honor. I formulated a training schedule, planned to train, talked about training and then didn't train. Even though I'm (mostly) unemployed, there is no good day to inhale two pounds of smelly sushi in 60 seconds.

When Maki Madness Sunday came, I woke up regretting my decision and thinking of excuses to preclude me from the event. The problem is my excuses are never simple. They always involve a circus elephant with multiple personality disorder terrorizing Cross Street Market and me doing a series of front-flips to get to the scene before hurling my body onto the elephant's back and saving the day using my elephant whisperer skills.

Three steps into RA, I knew the event was the real deal when I saw sweatbands around competitors' foreheads. If you're wearing a sweatband, whatever you're doing must be serious.

Organizers told me I was in the fourth heat. Going against my supporters' advice, I watched the first three groups. This was as horrifying as watching a stranger receive a colonoscopy moments before you're going to get one without any sedatives.

Highlights, which in actuality are the lowlights, included one poor competitor shooting water and rice out of her nose and one guy holding two uncut rolls in one hand and jamming them together down his sushi-hole.

I couldn't believe I was going to do this and I kept thinking of the German man who choked to death earlier this month during a pancake eating contest. I said: Heinreich (that's what I named him) wherever you are, help me out, danke.
 
Finally, my moment to prove my worth came. I took a chair that had good juju, inhaled and exhaled. And then one. Two. Three. Go! At that moment, the seven competitors to my left and right and the 30 or so people facing me, taking pictures and cheering disappeared. It was just me, and staring up at me from a white square plate, two hefty, uncut maki rolls.

My strategy, copped from a guy in the first heat, was to bite off a mouthful, chew twice, take a sip of water from the pint provided and then swallow the chunk of sushi. The water was key. It helped the hunks of unchewed food slide down my throat. Without it, it would have been like swallowing golf balls rolled in Rice Krispies.

Focused only on my plate and determined to win, I took down the first roll like a champ and moved onto the second. I was halfway through that one before I realized I was almost finished. And then bam, victory! I showed the refs my empty mouth and yelled my name as instructed. I placed second in my heat, jumped up and down in excitement and then immediately thought I was going to vomit.

An organizer informed me I was the only female who qualified for the second round. I thought about serenading my next plate of maki rolls with "You make me feel like a natural woman" but thought better of it given a TV crew was there taping the spectacle.

For the next hour and a half, I communicated with my supporters by way of burping before bringing my skills to the table again.

This round I choked—literally and figuratively. Two hunks down the hatch, I couldn't swallow the third. It lodged itself at the back of my throat and I had to gulp more water than I wanted to in order to get it down. That threw me out of the zone. The next thing I realize, I'm choking again. Heinreich's ghost told me to regroup for a second, which proved disastrous. At that crucial moment, I had one bite in my mouth and one bite to go when they called it. I was a loser. On autopilot, I threw down the one piece keeping me from victory and let the other half-masticated bite roll off my tongue back onto the plate.

Turns out defeat tastes like sushi.