The Broken Yolk Challenge

Don't you want a little taste of the glory? See what it tastes like?

-Nacho Libre

I was supposed to be retired.  Just like Apollo Creed.*  But there it was.  Again.  The prospect of glory, something close to immortality, in another seemingly impossible food challenge.  I had tried ignore it.  I’d fought it off several times.  But no longer.  It was time to step back into the ring.  
 

We don’t often go out to eat, but over the years we’ve enjoyed taking friends and family to The Broken Yolk.  That’s partly because of their generous portion sizes and better than average fare, but also because of the restaurant’s notoriety for the Broken Yolk Challenge, which was featured a few years ago in a San Diego episode of the Travel Channel’s “Man vs. Food.” 

 

The challenge is set on a 15 inch pizza pan, half covered with a 12 egg omelet “filled with mushrooms, onions and American cheese smothered with our own house-made chili and more cheese.”  The other half of the pan is filled with “a generous pile of home fries,” which is to say, as many as home fries as the cooks feel like piling on.  Then there are two enormous biscuits. 

 

In the Man vs. Food episode , Adam Richman completed the challenge with some difficulty but in 32 minutes.  You can watch the pertinent portion of the episode here. 

 

I hadn’t attempted a food challenge since the Big Texan (in Amarillo, Texas) back in 2002.  That meal is legendary, centering around a 72 oz. steak, with an accompanying baked potato, salad, roll, and shrimp cocktail.  I had an hour to eat it, and they set me on a table that seemed to be center stage for the restaurant.  It was quite the steak (and almost completely raw in the middle), but I was quite a bit heavier then.  I ultimately finished the meal in 52 minutes, and was sick for several days following.  Depending on how you look at it, it was either a high point or low point of my life.  Either way, though, I’ve achieved a bit of immortality by making their hall of fame (my accomplishment is listed on page 18 – the fact that they listed me as being 34 probably reflects the fact that the meal took off 10 years of my life).

 

In the last few years, as we've taken people to the Broken Yolk, I’ve had a few brothers on the cusp of taking on the challenge, only to ultimately be dissuaded – either by the waitress or other family members.

 

Most recently Jared (who was not alive when I ate the Big Texan) began asking me if he thought I could handle the challenge.  I cooly assured him I could -- I just didn’t want to get sick.  But after my brother Nathan backed out of the challenge last month (much to the disappointment of my kids), I heard myself comfort my son by tell him that I’d one day take on the challenge for him.

 

The fated day arrived a few weeks ago.  We had some encouraging/enabling friends in town, and the timing seemed just about as right as any.  With the hubris of an Apollo Creed before his charity bout with Ivan Drago, I figured I was in the best shape of my life, even though I hadn’t practiced for it at all and had never really even seen what the challenge looked like beyond the Man vs. Food episode.

 

We opted to make it happen over a Saturday lunch.  The kids peppered me with questions all the evening before and the morning.  Jared adopted my confidence that completing the challenge was just about a foregone conclusion.  Emily, though, was terribly concerned that I would end up on the “Wall of Shame” (those who can’t complete the challenge still have their picture taken, but it ends up there).  She didn’t want me to do it.

 

At the restaurant, as the waitress took our orders, everyone else ordered normal things. I looked over the menu and ordered the Broken Yolk challenge, trying to get out those words as nonchalantly as possible.  The waitress eyed me and smiled – the kind of smile that seemed to suppress an impulse to giggle.  Michelle was to my left, half-amused, half-appropriately disdainful of my foolishness.  Jared was to my right, and couldn’t have seemed more proud of his father.

 

[Waiting for the Challenge]

 

I watched the waitress then walk back to the kitchen and relay the orders to the cooks.  The cooks then looked over to our table, sized me up, and smiled.  That was a little disconcerting, since I knew there were no real limitations on how much food (specifically the potatoes) they could pile onto my plate.  The only real parameters were the 12 eggs in the omelet and the size of the pizza pan.  Everything else was up to the discretion of the cooks.  

 

We waited 20 minutes or so and then finally they brought out everyone’s orders.  Everyone’s but mine.  Then, with a bit more spectacle than I’d hoped for (i.e., any spectacle at all), a server picked up my meal from the cooks, called everyone’s attention in the restaurant, and paraded the meal around the restaurant as he announced that challenge’s parameters and that they had a contestant.   

 

I wanted to shrink away and hide.  My cheeks probably went red, and it was the first time that the foolishness of my endeavor crossed my mind with any real force.  The server set the meal in front me amid several onlookers, told me I had an hour, and left me to my work.

 

[Why do I see fear behind your eyes?]

 

 

For all I had heard and read, I truly was not prepared for the enormity of that meal.  The cooks had not been kind.  The omelet itself looked huge, but of greatest concern was the giant mound of potatoes that filled the other have the pan.  It looked like they’d intentionally made the challenge impossible for me.  On the TV show, the owner of the Broken Yolk in Pacific Beach mentioned that they put a pound a half of home fries on the plate.  That was not a pound a half on mine!  It looked closer to 3-4 lbs.!**  And the biscuits!  The biscuits looked like 3 giants biscuits devilishly cobbled into two super giants biscuits.   

 

I felt some sense of foreboding, but I put on a brave face for Jared.  I still held out hope that if anyone could finish the meal, I could.  After all, $28 was a stake.

 

 

The meal was initially delicious.  I loved the crispy out edges of the home fries and the saltiness of omelet.  But it only took a few bites of the potatoes and omelet for me to realize that there was no way I was finishing this meal. 
 

[So many calories, and I could taste every one.]

 

I had no set strategy for consumption, only a rough idea to mix things together.  That was foolish on my part. 

 

What was pleasured eating for 5-7 minutes soon became labored.  Then forced. And finally impossible.  After 20 minutes or so, all the American Cheese in the omelet made it so salty that it was almost completely unpalatable.

 

[Does this look like a man whose had all he can eat?]

 

 

Throughout the entire ordeal, there was encouragement from Jared, from our friends the Myers, and even from Michelle (in no small part, I suspect, because she didn’t want to have to pay for the meal any more than I did).

 

After 10-15 minutes, as I began openly expressing doubt about my ability to eat the whole thing, they only got more encouraging.  In fact, at one point, after I’d pretty much decided to quit, Michelle started calling some of my brothers for reinforcements -- hoping they would give me new inspiration.  Perhaps they’d help me find the Eye of the Tiger.
 

 

["You don't stop this fight no matter what.  No matter what."]

 

But it was not to be.  No amount of motivational speaking, pithy inspirational quotes, of force feeding from Michelle and Jared would make any further dent into that enormous omelet.  I had failed, and it was time to ask for a take out box (actually two take out boxes).

 

[Throwing in the towel]

 

Jared was completely deflated.  When I started to falter, he reminded me that I’d assured him I could do it.  And when I gave up, he hid his face from me in tears.  Apollo Creed was down, and he wasn’t moving.

 

After I’d started the challenge, the waitress mentioned to Michelle that she felt like their location (the Point Loma location) gave the largest portions of any in the franchise, and that the challenge there was probably harder than anywhere else.  And once it was over, the manager came out to visit and take my picture, noting that the challenge at his location usually consisted of 8-10 lbs. of food.

 

In the end, Emily took my placement on the wall of shame better than expected.  Jared may never look at me the same.  But while I was overly full, I at least hadn’t eaten myself sick this time around.  Which was good because we went boogie boarding immediately after.

It's time to go back into retirement.
 

 

*If I have to tell you what movie I’m referencing (Rocky IV), we may have trouble being friends. 

 

** Take a look at the pictures of my meal, then take a look at the meal during the Man vs. Food episode.  I defy you to try and convince me the meal I had was not substantially larger than what was featured on the show.