He came, he ate, he conquered.
Months after a Sydney, N.S. restaurant issued its six-pound donair challenge, someone has finally managed to devour the behemoth of beef, pita, tomatoes, onions and garlic sauce in under an hour.
“I was hoping someone would,” Justin Ayre, who owns the Alexandra’s Pizza outlet in Sydney that issued the challenge, told CTV Atlantic. “But, no: I didn’t think someone would finish it.”
This weekend, Joel Hansen travelled all the way to Nova Scotia from his home in Guelph, Ont. to test the limits of his stomach. On May 19, the former Maritimer managed to finish the mammoth donair in just over 28 minutes -- less than half the allotted time.
“The first time I heard about this challenge was back in February after it hit the news for the first time,” the 22-year-old told CTV Atlantic. “And ever since then, I just had to do it.”
Although many have tried, Hansen is the first person to ever complete the challenge.
“There’s a little bit of science behind it,” he said of his gorging feat. “You just have to be able to eat a large amount of food in a short amount of time. And somehow I did it. Stuff it in my big toe or something?”
Hansen is no feasting challenge rookie, though. He’s completed about a dozen others, including one in Buffalo, New York where he devoured an ice cream sundae that weighed about as much as a small dog. And believe it or not, when Hansen’s not stuffing his face in challenges like these, he works as a fitness model.
“It’s definitely a bit of work,” he said of his preparation regime. “It involves a lot of dieting when I’m not overindulging.”
The donair is a popular late-night dish in Nova Scotia with a strong resemblance to Greece’s gyro. Winning the challenge nets Hansen free pizza and donair for a year, a $500 donation to the charity of his choice, a picture on the restaurant’s wall of fame and a t-shirt that declares his near-superhuman feat.
With a report from CTV Atlantic’s Ryan MacDonald
