A Series of Sinful Events: Gluttony

I spent 40 minutes yesterday consuming the largest steak I've ever tried to eat.


This is a 20-ounce T-bone steak which I had at Smith and Western's last night. I felt compelled to try the largest steak on the menu when I received vouchers from my former boss and looked for the most expensive meal on offer. I later decided that I'd use the vouchers to get money off the whole bill rather than just get a free meal myself but I still wanted to eat that steak.

Now I don't like those eating challenges where you try and eat as much food as possible. You know the ones I mean, where there's a long table of big spotty people wearing baseball caps, with piles of burgers infront of them - the bell goes and everyone stuffs their faces.

But there's something about being able to eat alot that I find unnaturally satisfying. When I worked at Starbucks a few years ago, we went for a Chinese buffet at the Water Margin in Portsmouth. We challenged each other to eat as much as possible and I won after chomping down 5 plates and 3 bowls worth of food.

I regret not trying the 2lb burger challenge at the Surf Grill Shack in Chichester (which has unfortunately now shut down) - one summer they had this challenge where you didn't have to pay if you managed to finish the meal! I'm not sure that I would have done it actually but I do wish I had tried it now.

But I was actually feeling nervous about eating this steak in the days up to the meal. I don't think I've ever eaten that much meat in one go. My workmate was telling me how she ate a THIRTY-TWO ounce steak once and her digestive system shut down for 2 weeks. Nice. A similar thing happened to me during my last visit to Hong Kong where we pretty much had 3 meaty meals a day for 11 days.

I don't go out of my way to eat as much as possible. Honest! But my greedy eyes really are bigger than my belly. Although I make it my business to finish every scrap on my plate, I know that what I eat is quite a lot more than a standard portion. It doesn't help that I can never work out how to cook a single portion of rice, pasta, meat or even veg - I avoid the hassle of measuring ingredients if I can help it!

As I was eating this steak, I was actually trying to slow myself down because I could feel myself trying to eat it as quick as possible - so as to beat my stomach's realisation that it was getting full or something. That's bad isn't it?! I started the meal with the sole intention of finishing the steak at least, and managing any of the rest of the meal as a bonus. But as I tucked in, I couldn't help myself nibbling into the sides - the yummy baked potato in particular - and found myself finishing the whole lot.

Would I eat this again? Probably not actually as it really was a bit too large. But I don't regret eating it at all as it was the juiciest steak - though my steak-expert housemate Grace had to teach me how to cut it properly ("against the grain!") as I had a bit of a battle getting it into bite-sized pieces :-)

I had to walk it off afterwards and couldn't bring myself to look at the photos to do my blog last night! But looking back at the photos and writing about it now has made me kinda hungry...

Read the rest of the Series of Sinful Events