Wanko Soba Championships

[Mulboyne]

"Japanese Soba in a Bawl" - Hanamaki City Website
Kyodo: Soba champ eats 201 bowls in 5 minutes
A soba-eating contest was held Friday in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, with 140 hungry participants taking part in five categories. Contestants had to eat as many miso soup-sized bowls of the buckwheat noodles as they could in five minutes. The overall winner, a 37-year-old man from Miyagi, downed 201 bowls, 20 short of the record of 222 set by a housewife last year.
Tohoku Electric Power Homepage

Wanko soba is an entertaining and competitive way to enjoy buckwheat noodles. The idea is to see how many bowls of noodles you can eat. Each serving is quite small, however every time you empty a bowl, it is immediately filled again with noodles. As the bowls are filled the waiters and staff shout encouragement to the dinners, saying, "jan jan,"...And every year Iwate hosts the Wanko Soba Championships where gluttons from all over Japan come to compete.

Two FGs "eating-till-they-puke" at the Restaurant Azumaya in Morioka - from uwplatt.edu: Morioka Field Trip 2004

[Mels]

oishiso. I do love soba. I miss the fresh noodles.

Don't think I could get into the eating competition, but I could eat my fair share!!

[American Oyaji]

Even though I lived close to Morioka, I never got a chance to go down and eat wanko soba.

[Mulboyne]

I never got a chance to go down and eat wanko soba.

I'm sure that is rude somehow but I can't quite put my finger on why....

[GuyJean]

I never got a chance to go down and eat wanko soba.

I'm sure that is rude, somehow but I can't quite put my finger on why....

Yeah, when you have 'go down' and 'eat wanko' in the same sentence, sugar plums start dancing in my head..

GJ

[Mels]

I never got a chance to go down and eat wanko soba.

I'm sure that is rude, somehow but I can't quite put my finger on why....

I right in the gutter with you

[Mulboyne]

Photo: Nikkei
The winner of the 20th Morioka All-Japan wanko soba eating tournament put away 342 bowls in the 15 minute time limit.

[fatslug]

look how FUCKEN SMALL THEM BOWLS are though !

fucken i eat 500 grams of soba regularly.........i couldnt train to eat 1-2 kgs no problems !

[American Oyaji]

I never got a chance to go down and eat wanko soba.

I'm sure that is rude, somehow but I can't quite put my finger on why....

I hadn't looked at this thread since I originally posted that.



That cracked me up!!

[canman]

You aren't missing anything about going down on some Wanko Soba. Although I understand what you meant by going down. You see AO lived and I live North of Morioka. So to visit Morioka we must go down the express road.
Now back to the original thought, the soba does come in pretty small bowls, and the amount is very small. The worst thing about it is that you don't have time to chew or taste or anything. So its more for the experience than the food. I don't remeber what it tasted like at all. I was only able to eat 60 bowls before I was ready to heave ho. It seems a lot of the Morioka Obasans can wolf down 100 with no problems.

[IkemenTommy]

I wonder how that hot dog world champ would do if he entered.

I took the challenge of eating 900 grams of oyako-don the other day or else there was a batsu-game waiting (some house rule). Luckily I had a friend who helped out but I would've seriously

[Greji]

I never got a chance to go down and eat wanko soba.

I'm sure that is rude, somehow but I can't quite put my finger on why....

I can!
hehehe

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Man sets record by eating 241 bowls of 'wanko' noodles
HANAMAKI, Iwate -- A 38-year-old man has won a noodle-eating contest by consuming a record 241 small bowls of 'wanko' soba. Masahiro Kato from Shiroishi, Iwate Prefecture, won the contest for the second year in a row. His feat was roughly equivalent to eating 24 normal-sized bowls of noodles. About 160 people took part in the contest at Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, which is believed to be the birthplace of wanko soba noodles. The runner-up reportedly ate 227 bowls.