I ate 5 lbs of food in a half-hour at Padrino Italian restaurant

In the winter of 2014, my sisters and I went out for dinner at Padrino Italian, a restaurant in Milford, Ohio. I can't remember exactly what I ate there (I don't have Hyperthymesia), though I do remember enjoying it. But my dominant memory of the experience was seeing the following challenge in its menu:

In case you can't read that for some reason, here is the description of "The $30 Spaghetti & Meatball Challenge":

Spaghetti & Meatball Challenge

2lbs. of spaghetti, 1lb. of meatballs, 1 lb. of marinara & garlic knots. Finish it and it’s FREE! Plus receive a free t-shirt and your picture on the wall of fame. 45 minute time limit. No excusing yourself from the table and NO RETURNS.. if you know what we mean?

When I first saw this, I knew immediately that attempting this challenge was my destiny. Much as mountain climber George Mallory wished to climb Mt. Everest "because it is there," I desired to conquer the Padrino's challenge.

I was, moreover, confident that I would succeed. For I have always loved food beyond the mere physical necessity of requiring it to live. Indeed, often in my life this passion has swung dangerously close to indulgence, and perhaps even to gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Pictured: My death?

Fortunately, I recognized my immoderate tendencies many years ago. But instead of suppressing them, I balanced them against further immoderation in the opposite direction: I gave up junk food, dessert, candy, and pop; and I dedicated myself fully to running, a pursuit that just so happens to require a bunch of food to sustain. Between these two steps, I could still eat a lot (just ask any one of my running teammates over the years), but not constantly, and never unhealthily. My appetite did not recede; I just tried to satisfy it with healthier foods.

Which is exactly why I set my sights on the pasta-laden Padrino's Challenge. Though I held off from it for many months, it lingered in my mind. I was just waiting for the right time. When the opportunity to meet up for dinner with my old friend Ethan Bokeno, whom I ran against and befriended in high school, the weekend I was returning to Cincinnati for my twin sister's graduation, I insisted that we go to Padrino and try the challenge, and he accepted.

With my plans established, I went about preparing for the challenge--acclimatizing, if you will, to keep up the wildly overwrought Everest analogy. Quite unlike preparing to climb Everest, preparing for the Padrino's challenge did not require much hardship on my part. Two weeks before the scheduled date, I prepared and then consumed an entire pan of Chicken Parmesan, just to see if I could. It turns out that I was not only capable of this, but capable of eating it in about 15 minutes. I deemed this a satisfying proof of concept.

This week, leading up to the challenge, I didn't change much. I ate slightly less than usual day-to-day, but didn't reduce my caloric intake by so much that my stomach would shrink. Until the day before, that is. On that day, I ate a light dinner. And then on April 29, the day of, I ate only a yogurt for breakfast (at 3 am; I had a plane to catch), ran a fast 9 miles a few hours before the challenge, and ate only a half of an apple before journeying to Padrino for the challenge. Before entering, I boldly declared the following to the world, well aware that I might be inviting a nemesis to my hubris, a comeuppance to my arrogance, by doing so:

[Jack Butler] is about to attempt to eat 3 pounds of spaghetti, 1 pound of meatballs, and one pound of rolls in 45 minutes with no restroom breaks. It'll be free if he finishes it (plus a shirt and a spot on the Padrino Italian Wall of Fame), and $30 if he fails.
But he won't fail.

I then walked into the restaurant with my friend and moral support for the evening. We both got menus. He ordered first, choosing a pizza. When Josh, our waiter, turned to me, I told him that I came here for one thing and one thing only: the Padrino's challenge. His calm face registered a small twitch of surprise, and then he asked me if I were sure about it. I told him yes, and he said he'd get it ready.

In the interim, my friend and I caught up with each other, and I experienced a nervousness somewhat comparable to that I feel before starting a race. Could I really do this? What if I couldn't finish? What if I thew up? Such thoughts raced around my nervous brain until my waiter emerged from the kitchen with this:


Appearances aside, this actually looked less intimidating than I expected. But I was still afraid that I wouldn't finish. Before firing the starting gun, Josh the Waiter announced to the restaurant that "if anyone cares, this man is about to attempt the Padrino Challenge...to eat all of this in 45 minutes, with no bathroom breaks." I started my own watch concurrently with his, and then I began.

My strategy all along was to eat as quickly as possible. My knowledge of my own metabolism and digestive system, combined with the well-known tendency of pasta to expand in the stomach, suggested this would be the best course. So, after saying grace ("I need God on my side for this," I told my dinner companion), putting the rolls aside for later and cutting the handful of large meatballs into smaller, more manageable pieces, I attacked like an animal the giant bowl of pasta before me. When I found the center too hot to eat fast, my dining companion suggested that I start at the sides, where the food would be cooler. Occasionally, I offered witticisms to my dinner companion between mouthfuls, wondering whether the other people in the restaurant thought I was an animal, whether the staff thought my relatively skinny outward frame could truly stomach the challenge, and whether we truly live in an America where, as a recent Onion headline read, a "Restaurant's Extreme Burger Challenge" could be "Moved Down To Regular Menu." 

As my efforts continued, and I found myself nearly halfway done with my meal with less than one-third of the time expired, I began to become something of a cause in the restaurant. Staff walking in and out of the kitchen and tending to other customers cast smiling glances at me, noting my progress; patrons, enthralled by my progress, began to move to my side. "He's really gonna do it!" said one. "Good job" said another. And "only in America," said I, "would other restaurant patrons encourage me in this way. Well, maybe in Germany. But it wouldn't be this food. It would be beer and bratwurst or something." Elated by the support, by my progress, and by my stomach's not yet feeling the effects of my rapid consumption, I began to feel quite good about my prospects for completion.

And then I hit the Wall. In a marathon, another outrageous thing to compare my competitive gluttony to (especially since I haven't run one...yet), the Wall is when the marathon goes from hard to really, really hard. It separates the wheat from the chaff, the mere completists from the racers. I began to hit my food Wall when my dining companion decided to use the restroom, a privilege allowed him but not denied me. Alone, my resolve faltered. My stomach rebelled. The pasta and meatballs I had stuffed down my esophagus made several attempts to climb back out. It seemed all too likely that vomit, an outcome I had feared from the beginning, would soon follow. I began to lose hope.

But then I realized all that was at stake. And even though it wasn't really all that much--having to pay $30 for my meal, losing a shirt and a promised spot on the Padrino Wall of Fame--there was something far greater at stake: My pride. With my pride on the line, and aided by my inborn stubbornness, I carefully forced out a few strategic burps. From them, I got a second wind. By the time my dining companion returned to our table, I was back at my plate again, less than a third of my meal to go. Though my pace slowed a little, I still had plenty of time left. So I carefully cleaned my plate, and then triumphantly moved it aside, though not before asking Josh the Waiter "does this count as finished?"




With about 25 minutes still to go, I then moved onto the rolls I had moved aside at the beginning of my meal. Many of you know of my love of bread; these were really just footnotes to something I had already completed. But I still had to eat them to complete the challenge. So I ate them leisurely, taking each in with four roughly coequal bites. And though it was just bread, this was a surprisingly difficult part of the challenge. It took me a while to get halfway through, and when I finished the third, I suddenly began to worry that I would not finish, and that my old nightmare of never being able to accomplish anything to my own satisfaction, of always falling just short, would resurface, that the roll, or even the last bite of the last roll, would undo me. In the middle of the restaurant, I recited my own shorthand for existential dissatisfaction, a few verses from Tennyson's "Ulysses" I memorized from high school:

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

 Or, if you prefer something a bit more lowbrow:

But in truth I suffered neither fate. I spent a lot of time chewing my last bite of bread, but I finished it all the same. It took me 30:25, a time I wish were my 10k PR; I had 14:35 left, a time I wish were my 5k PR. Upon completion, I raised my arms in the air and summoned Josh the waiter, who congratulated me upon my victory. In keeping with the terms of the challenge, he presented a bill only to my dining companion, and went to fish me out a shirt. Alas, they didn't have any in my size; I gave them my information, so I'll get it at a later time, which I'm all right with. I'm less all right with the apparent disappearance of the Padrino's Wall of Fame, but I have this blog to immortalize my experience, so I'm still OK with that. When I finally felt good enough to be able to stand, I asked to take a picture with Josh, my waiter, who currently wears a manbun identical to the one I sported this time last year (my shirt, by the way, will be identical to his).

Josh was a good sport. 

  

Before I left Padrino, I asked Josh if he thought I would be capable of completing the challenge when I sat down at his table. "No," he admitted. "I thought you were just some guy who walked in here hungry and chose the biggest thing on the menu." Before I told him, he had no idea that I'd had the Padrino challenge on my mind for more than a year. Regardless, he was impressed, and promised to get me my shirt. I thanked him, and then walked out, a conquering hero.

So what have I learned from this experience? Many things. First, go to Padrino, even if you don't attempt the challenge. It's a nice restaurant in a great location with a good atmosphere, pleasant staff, friendly patrons, and good food. Second, it seems my 22-year-old metabolism is still burning strong; staying in good running shape, of course, helps. Third, It's possible that I've missed my calling--or at least a calling--by not starting to do these eating challenges earlier in my life. In fact, now that I've proven I can do this sort of thing, I may do it more often. But, finally, I've also learned that even my own body has limits. Apart from the difficult Wall phase of my challenge, there is also the obvious fact that I have barely moved since I returned home after my victory. Even with the running-enhanced metabolism of a 22-year-old male, I can only do so much. But the fact that I can eat this much means that I better keep running. Otherwise, I may suffer an unfortunate fate.

Pictured: My future?