ONLY in JAPAN
We're leaving the city of Tokyo and heading north on the Joban expressway.
105 kilometers or about 75 minutes to a highway service area. It seems like an odd thing to do.
but Japanese service areas, written as SA on the maps are famous for serving unique local foods.
And this one in Ibaraki prefecture is pretty special. Welcome to Tomobe service area.
Travelers heading north often stop here for more than just the restrooms.
Inside is a food court serving some amazing Japanese food, but we are here for this!
Do you see it yet?
It's hard to miss, it looks massive. It's constructed of 16 generous slices of marinated pork.
Slightly sweet, slightly salty, topped with some green sprouts like a mountain all in a bed of rice and locally sourced cabbage.
Japanese highway service areas are incredible. But when you throw in a regional food challenge like that over there Mount Tsukuba -- Tsukubasan!
It's one of Japan's most famous mountains the observatory of the Kanto plains beautiful to gaze at.
and now to eat!
A mountain of meat on rice
Yea, that's pretty awesome and to help me out with this report, and to eat is my friend, Dean Newcombe.
How you doing guys. glad to be here. It's good to see you nice and hungry ready
I'm very happy to hear that because this is actually one kilogram of meat and rice
that's the monster, huh?
Yeah, it's big.
Now this food challenge does not have a time to it, but we might just add an element of suspense to this
Yeah, I'm super excited about this
Let's get our order in, and see what the meat mountain looks like.
There are four sizes of this dish called Tondon depending on the volume of rice and slices of grilled pork cutlet
The last one is why we're here the tondon Tsukuba-san, Mount Tsukuba and truly represents the area's largest peak
The model is quite intimidating!
and it looks more than one kilogram a picture of the actual dish shows a flatter Mount Tsukuba.
The model sure is eye-grabbing but underneath it says that the real dish will look, different?
This just adds a little more mystery to it!
Bottom line, 16 large slices of grilled pork in a bowl is nothing to ignore.
Dean and I ordered at the vending machine. one bowl with miso soup costs about
¥1,700 or about $15.00 Dean paid with his IC card on his smartphone.
The tondon tsukubasan order is in keep your ticket for pickup for when they call your number, the chef fires up the grill
This is what is underneath the meat a mountain of rice covered in cabbage.
The meat is almost ready for the setting.
It's leaned up against the rice to create a rugged look
It's topped with some Negi onions and sprouts because Mount Tsukuba is a natural place!
Give your ticket to the staff when called.
Here's the set with miso soup.
Add a little Japanese mayonnaise if you want another dimension to the taste.
It looks almost like snow on the side of the peak. It sure seemed to weigh more than one kilogram
This definitely is going to be harder than I thought
Wow!
Game on! I set and started the timer for 15 minutes.
Itadakimasu! (translation: I humbly receive! / Let's eat!) on your mark, get set, let's get this done!
It's really good!
They gave us chopsticks, it might have been a little embarrassing to ask for a fork, but seriously, no one uses forks here.
But it would make this challenge much easier.
Dean flattened his Mount Tsukuba fast.
The pork is grilled just perfectly I really loved the taste of the grilled taste to it.
And the sauce is just it's a little bit salty but sweet as well.
Both: Yeah
After two minutes
It didn't seem like we'd made a dent in the dish at all
To get the rice and cabbage underneath you have to fight through the wall of 16 pork cuts.
Food challenges arn't as fun as i thought they would be.
You know I've done food challenges before once I ate this gyoza.
It was like 2 and 1/2 kilogram some like really juicy. Let's just say oily, fatty, meat
Stuck in a cakey like like bread. Yeah. I didn't finish that!
Very few people finish that right.
So today is a little bit easier.
That gyoza food challenge of 2014 is the number one trolled video on this channel
Don't read the comments like I did to prepare for your next food challenge!
that gyoza challenge has haunted me for years.
People would say why didn't you just picked it up like a baby
Well first of all you don't eat a baby! I simply couldn't let it go
I used a fork a knife to eat a meat pumpkin! and I still regret not finishing it.
At the halfway point, only seven and a half minutes in Dean hit his wall. are you done!?
Are you done or are you just taking a break?
Just, just chillin!
Was it over confidence? I think so, seven minutes left.
Every second count.
it really feels that now, seven minutes in like now wow, I can feel that I've eaten a lot.
As I'd say that was a big meal up until now anything past this point isn't a supersize.
Look at that look at the depth of that. It's like a hole fingers worth of rice there.
god help me!
I don't think I'm going anywhere, didn't I eat this one already?
I think I've eaten some of these already, they magically return.
When you hit the wall, it hurts more than just your stomach.
4 minutes!
oh baby! this ain't good for our cholesterol, is it dean?
Tsukuba, you know, it doesn't look that big when you're driving around it
When you're eating Tsukuba, it's really big!
It seems a lot bigger and that's true of Tsukuba. It really does seem it really is bigger than it seems. Yeah, huh?
This trip originally started at Ibaraki Airport where we rented a car the other day to explore drive-through
restaurants and eat some incredible A5 Hitachi wagyu beef.
With food as our focus to travel. We also took in as much of the countryside as possible.
And before this challenge we went up Mount Tsukuba.
Cable car is the easiest way.
At the top is all of the Kanto plains before you views to Tokyo and even Mount Fuji on a clear day
We can stand on top of it but can we finish eating it? just two minutes remain!
I think you've got me on the rice
Yeah, I've been plucking away at it when you get tired. It's important to find your hidden higher gear!
in my case - greasy fast speed!
Looks impressive, huh?
We probably would have been better off with a fork and spoon
but part of this challenge is using chopsticks.
and your skill in picking up pieces of rice will be a new challenge when you get closer to the bottom.
But it didn't seem like we were getting any closer to the bottom though.
anyone can eat a lot of food, but defeating a challenge means hitting that wall your limit, and pushing through it
On the other side Dean looked defeated.
But I refuse to give up.
Too much talking not enough... I know what you're saying. Just pick up the bowl and dump it in your mouth.
well to be honest, I hadn't thought of that, chopsticks are not easy to use when speed is important.
There's a technique Japanese have for getting the last parts of rice out of the bowl, which I'll teach you at the end.
seven!
six!
five!
four!
three!
two!
ONE!!
*phone buzzer ringing*
Winner!
But we both lose because we didn't finish.
however It looks like I got more of the rice.
I just I felt like I was trying with the rice, but it just wasn't moving, you know, yeah.
There's a lot left but it's oily and separated very hard to eat like this with chopsticks
Dean had more in his bowl
We both lose but out of curiosity. We wayed to see who was the biggest loser.
Dean came in with 450 grams including the bowl.
My bowl weighed 411 grams.
That was a good meal
Good meal, but I was not satisfied with myself or my performance. I returned to try again the next day.
Dean doesn't know I'm here. I've come back to complete the task
We didn't do it the first time. Can't live with myself until I eat that whole thing! It's time to get serious.
No, yapping at the camera just focus!
We'll speed this up.
*dramatic music*
When you don't have a spoon the secret is to pick up your bowl and shovel it in with your chopsticks.
It's a normal technique in Japan. It's also polite to eat every grain of rice.