La Costena Jalapenos, Chicago, IL 9/14/08

La Costena Jalapeno Feel the Heat Championship Results:

8 minute contest

1 - Pat Deep Dish Bertoletti - 127
2 - Sonya the Black Widow Thomas - 117
3 - Erik the Red Denmark - 105
4 - Rich the Locust LeFevre - 104
5 - John ?? - 90
6 - Hall Hoover Hunt - 88
7 - Tim Gravy Brown - 81
8 - Eric Badlands Booker - 65


Pat Bertoletti Eats 127 Jalapeños in IFOCE Challenge - Watch today’s top amazing videos here

After a tough contest in Nashville I did not know what to expect on Sunday and the third straight day of eating contests for me. I actually had very little expectations of doing great in this contest but I woke up feeling 100% better than the day before and I was able to redeem myself a bit with a good performance. Hurricane Ike forced this contest to change venues at the last minute to indoors at Mi Tienda restaurant in Chicago. La Costena pulled a rabbit out of the hat and still put on a great show. There were several big media members still in attendance and a great crowd showed up.

The eating itself never seemed to get out of third gear for anyone. For some reason, the jalapenos were not going down as fast for anyone this year. I am not sure exactly why no one was able to get over 150 for this contest, maybe the indoor venue kept the jalapenos more fresh and full of spice instead of drying out in the sun outdoors. Either way, I know more people struggled in Chicago this year than last year. Despite eating more than I ate at last year's contest, I was still well behind my pace and goal for this contest.

I do want to apologize to George Shea and Rich LeFevre for not eating as clean as I always have in jalapeno eating contests in the past. I was deducted 3 jalapenos for not cleaning them to the stem, this was definitely not a conscious way of eating for me and I am embarrassed that I was deducted any at all. After what happened in Nashville, it was not my goal to put George in a place to make a judgement on me. There were several peppers that did not have stems and I did leave more than an 1/4" on a few of those peppers because subconsciously I think I was worried that if I ate them down to the knob they would not be counted and by doing so I left more than was allowed. Honestly, since the peppers were plated in quantity of 25, the count really can be determined by subtracting what is left. Next time I will eat the whole pepper and not worry about it.

All in all, the weekend was a great adventure and at least 2 or the 3 contests came out well for me. The one contest I worked the hardest for was not a success but I will have one more shot at that one. I intend to have Karma on my side this weekend and not forget my headband...

Click Here to listen to my interview on KJR recapping the weekend of eating