Man v. Food Season 3 Episode 5: Salt Lake City
Adam travels to Salt Lake City, Utah, to take on the Hellfire Challenge at Kobe Sushi restaurant. Adam is a trained sushi chef so he knows sushi. The six piece sushi dish looks harmless enough, but the tuna rolls are packed with Kobe’s fiery hot sauce. The challenge has no time limit, but it does require that the challengers complete level four, five and six hot sauce bites before taking on the level seven challenge. Out of four hundred people, only twelve have won the Hellfire challenge. If Adam completes the challenge he wins a t-shirt and his photo will join the others on the wall of challenge champions.
First Adam visits Crown Burgers, known for their Greek food and burgers. Adam is at Crown Burgers to try their famous “meat on meat” two patty cheeseburger. The restaurant owner shows Adam how the Crown Burger is made: two quarter pound grilled beef patties with melted American cheese, onions, lettuce and tomato coated with their own fry sauce on toasted bun. What makes this burger special is that it is topped with a huge portion of Crown Burgers own in-house spiced pastrami. Adam bites into the burger and says “That’s awesome!”, and agrees, the fry sauce is the best.
Next Adam hits the Bruges Waffles and Frites restaurant, where they specialize in waffles, fries and fried goodies. Adam is there to try the Machine Gun, a spicy lamb sausage sandwich piled high with crispy frites (fries), dripping in their spicy mayo sauce. The owner shows Adam how the fries are made extra crispy, putting them into the fry basket, then frying them a second time. The owner builds the Machine Gun sandwich as Adam looks on patiently. The fries and two lamb sausages are placed in the fry basket and fried twice to golden crispiness, As the owner tosses the fries in a bowl with salt after frying, Adam expertly grabs a french fry in his mouth mid-air. The sausage and fries are piled on bread then covered in the Bruges spicy mayo sauce. Adam looks at the ginormous completed sandwich and tells the audience “This is like a Winnebago made of bread, sausage and fries!” Adam scarfs down the sandwich, calling his Machine Gun sandwich experience a “Foodgasm”.
Its time for Adam to face the Hellfire Challenge at Kobe Sushi. There are no time limits and any kind of drink is permitted to cool the fiery food. Adam must first complete a level four, five and six hot sauce bite portion of tuna roll to move on to the level seven Hellfire Challenge. To prepare for the challenge, a montage shows Adam hitting the ski slopes to cool off before the challenge, with Adam skiing against a green screen while showing expert skiers flying down mountains and falling into the snow.
Adam meets the owner of Kobe to see how the tuna rolls of doom are made. Adam notes that the level four tuna roll incorporates a popular Asian hot sauce you see in most supermarkets. Next the owner adds red chili spice to the level five roll. When Adam sees the addition of Thai chilies to the level six tuna roll he realizes they are blistering hot tiny chilies that will cause some pain. The owner tells Adam that the Thai chilies are forty times hotter than a Jalepeno pepper. Adam discovers the level seven challenge tuna roll adds an extra dose of chili seeds along with a strip of jalapeno pepper in each piece, making the level seven tuna roll eighty times hotter than a jalapeno pepper. Adam looks pensively at his challenge, knowing Hellfire is close by. The owner minimizes the heat of the level seven tuna roll and Adam scoffs “Look Alex, don’t pee on my head and tell me its raining when I know its going to kill me!”
Adam readies himself for the level four, five and six hot sauce bites by standing on his chair and skiing with his chopsticks as the crowd roars. The level four, five and six hot sauce bites are one piece of tuna roll packed with hot sauce. Adam starts with the level four bite and is hit immediately with heat. Adam shakes himself from the burst of heat and downs the level five piece, then tells the audience its very hot! Adam grimaces and downs the level six piece, telling the audience the tuna roll “Exploads in my mouth like a nuclear bomb!” and mentions to the crows that after level six, “My mouth is on fire!”
Now that Adam has passed the level four, five and six part of the tuna roll challenge, he comes face to face with the six piece level seven Hellfire Challenge, which Adam calls “The spiciest tuna on the planet”. Adam swallows the first of six level seven tuna roll pieces and immediately drinks milk afterwards, saying the milk is not helping. Adam downs pieces two and three and tells the audience “Even my sweat begins to burn” as he wipes his forehead. The crowd cheers Adam on as he eats piece four, then piece five, finally in tears from the heat. Adam drinks more milk and water to prepare for the final sixth piece of the sushi. As Adam eats the last piece of level seven tuna roll, he chews and proclaims “I swallow the sun!” Adam rises from his table and pumps his fist in victory, immediately followed by a big glass of milk. Adam tells the crowd in today’s challenge of man vs food, man won. As the show ends, the camera pans to the photo of Adam holding a big glass of milk on the Hellfire Challenge wall of challenge champions.
