Not Even Close

Posted by Jordan

Just West of downtown Denver, on a hill overlooking the mile-high city with all of its glittering skyscrapers, professional sports arenas, Elitch Gardens, and gang-infested North-Side suburbs, some malicious and conspiring man named Jack decided to open a restaurant.

It's actually a really a fun place to visit.  He's got anything and everything with the name "Jack" in it covering the walls.  Pictures of Jack Russell Terriers, Jack Nicholson pictures, an Alan Jackson CD, a game of Jacks... use your imagination.  Also, if you have named your kid Jack, Jacklyn, Jackson, Jackie, or anything with "Jack" in it since the restaurant opened, the child gets free food for life.  (This almost swayed me to change our decision on our soon-to-arrive daughter's name...)

Besides the great Jackmosphere, they say the food is fantastic.  Awesome looking burgers, which my co-workers say are among the best they've ever had, and which are so big you have to cut them into quarters before you can pick them up.  Big platters of Mexican food smothered in melted cheese and topped with fresh guacamole.  Nothing here comes small, but it's cheap.  For example, one of the said behemoth burgers costs around $8. 

Now, I imagine that on a slow day, Jack took inventory of the food in his restaurant kitchen that had to be eaten before it passed its expiration. He must have decided to fry it all up, pile it all together, and serve it on a plate the size of a car hood... and suddenly a monster was born:  The SEVEN POUND breakfast burrito.

It smells as evil as it looks.  Problem is, the pictures cannot do it justice.  To actually have it placed before you, this giant mound of insanity... all you can do is laugh.  A picture just doesn't really capture it adequately.  It is so filled with heat, potatoes, (and I believe the spirits of damned souls) that the Travel Channel's Man v. Food ran an episode on it.

Ingredients:

-an entire 5 lb. bag of potatoes, chopped and fried
-a dozen scrambled eggs
-fried onions
-half pound of meat (ham, I think, but it could have been bacon)
-half pound of cheese
-handfuls of fresh roasted hot green chili peppers
-one large tortilla draped over the top
-your choice of green or red chili sauce

Not even Adam from Man v. Food came close to finishing this.  Thousands have tried, but less than 200 have ever finished it.  If a woman can somehow accomplish the feat of sending all seven pounds down her esophagus and fit it all within the confines of her abdomen, temporarily displacing most of her internal organs and severely inhibiting her breathing, she will get free food for life from the restaurant.  (You've got to remember that seven pounds is as much as a newborn baby.)

If a man finished the burrito, he gets his picture on the wall of fame and doesn't have to pay for the meal.

Whoop-dee-flippin-doo.

That's like saying, "Hey, if you pay me $15 to kick you hard in the groin, and you don't scream or pass out, I'll return your $15 bucks and put up a picture of your tear-streaked red face for all to see and wonder: 'What kind of fool would voluntarily allow his body to experience this kind of pain?'"

I guess I'm that kind of fool.  My manager took me and a co-worker out to this place after work last night.  My capacity for food had started to become exaggerated by my employees who watch in amazement every once in a while when I take down my lunch in the office.  Tony, (the guy in the picture) wanted to see if I could put my food where my mouth is... er, um.... I don't think I know how that saying is supposed to go.

I finished only half.  It was shameful.  I even trained the night before by having Jaicee feed me half a casserole dish of chicken enchiladas, then I ate a bowl of mashed potatoes and drank half a gallon of water.  But last night, I couldn't take one more bite.

Here was the problem:  It wasn't so much the volume, as the taste.  The burrito itself was not delicious.  The red sauce was boo-nasty.  It smelled gross when the crane lowered it onto the table in front of me, and from the very first bite, it was gross!  It didn't taste like breakfast, or anything even remotely appetizing.  It was just mouthful after mouthful of smoke-out-your-ears spicy hot potatoes.  I was proud that I made it through three and a half pounds.

The fact that I could have held more was confirmed after I waved the white napkin, when I tried to put out the fire with two tall lemonades.  There was more room in there afterall.  I'm not saying I could have finished it, but I could have held more than half of that demon burrito if it actually tasted good.  Like if it were seven pounds of hash browns and sausage country gravy.  I could have done it.  But one more bite of this nastiness would have brought it all back up (and if that happens at the table, they double charge you for cleanup, and for grossing out the other patrons.)

I had Tony and Josh carry me out on a stretcher, moaning and half conscious, feeling like I had a stomach full of molten lava.  Go ahead, Jack, keep the $15.  I lose this time.  But I take consolation in the fact that I can make a WAY better breakfast burrito than you.

(P.S. does anyone know what happened to the feature that lets me add videos to my posts?)