Japanese game show contestant conquers Waffle Cone ice cream challenge

By BRITTANY FHOLER 
Cove Leader-Press

The Waffle Cone had a special visitor from Japan who dominated the Dog Challenge, eating six pounds of ice cream plus toppings in 40 minutes on Tuesday evening. 
The Japanese television show, Sekai Kurabete Mitura, known in English as “When the World Is Compared”, filmed part of an episode at Waffle Cone. The show, which compares Japanese culture with other countries’, approached John Hayes, owner of the Waffle Cone, about filming a competitive eater as she took on the Dog Ice Cream Challenge. The episode will air in Japan October 8 and focuses on big food challenges in Japan, Thailand and the U.S., featuring the Japanese “super eater”/competitive eater Angela Sato. 
In researching locations in the U.S., the production crew discovered a lot of food challenges in Texas, according to Hiroki Kawanami, a coordinator with TK Digital Creative Productions. 
Prior to defeating the Dog Challenge at the Waffle Cone, Sato and the film crew were in Austin, where Sato lost the Big Fat Fatty Challenge at Fat Sal’s Deli. That challenge required the contestant to finish a 12-pound sandwich with cheesesteak, cheeseburgers, pastrami, chicken fingers, bacon, mozzarella sticks, fried eggs, French fries, onion rings, chili, marinara and “Fat Sauce” on a 27-inch garlic hero bread in the designated time limit of 40 minutes. Sato only made it about two-thirds of the way through, according to Hiroki Kawanami, a coordinator with TK Digital Creative Productions. 
In the eight years since the Waffle Cone first opened, only five people have defeated the Dog Challenge, Hayes said before Sato got started. Hayes said he was humbled that the show’s producers chose Waffle Cone as their location to film. 
“There’s a lot of big food that you can find within a 100-150 miles of this place, so for them to come here, is very nice,” Hayes said. 
The film crew filmed Hayes as he put together the monstrous sundae. When choosing flavors, which included cake batter and cotton candy among others, Sato said she had no allergies, except for being “allergic to hunger.”
After the sundae was assembled, Hayes explained the rules of the challenge to Sato. 
Sato had one hour to finish the whole bowl. During that one hour, she was not allowed to leave for the bathroom, go outside or throw up anywhere. 
Sato started out slowly, beginning at 8:25 p.m. Not even 15 minutes into eating, she began to feel the effects of the cold ice cream and pulled on a sweater and used some heated handwarmer packs. After clarification of whether she could get up and move, Sato tried jogging in place to warm up even more. 
Hayes expressed his doubts of Sato finishing the Dog. His ice cream, which he makes himself, has a higher percentage of milk fat than ice cream found in stores. Any time spent not eating is time where the body is absorbing the milk fat and getting fuller, he added. 
He predicted that Sato would not finish because of that and because of how cold she would get from eating so much ice cream in a short period of time while she was so thin. 
When Sato had finished about half of the ice cream, she stopped to warm up again. She told Hayes that the ice cream was “very good” but that she was “very cold.” 
Hayes had given Sato three spoons to use- two regular sized spoons and one large serving size spoon. Just before 9 p.m., Sato broke out the bigger spoon and began taking larger bites. 
Hayes shared that he had never seen anyone eat the ice cream as quickly as Sato before. 
Sato paused with less than 30 minutes to go while the camera crew from Sekai Kurabete Mitura changed out a camera battery. 
With 20 minutes left in the allotted one-hour time frame, Sato finished the Dog Challenge by scooping the last bite of ice cream onto a piece of a waffle cone while customers and personnel cheered her on. 
After finishing the challenge, Hayes vowed to let Sato rename the challenge to be called the “Sekakura”, an abbreviated form of the name of the television show. Sato also won $100 and had her picture taken to be displayed on the wall. 
Hayes said he was very impressed with Sato. 
“She was the best we’ve ever had do the Dog before,” Hayes said. “She sat down and she started and she never quit. She just kept eating. She didn’t eat a lot but she kept eating. I have had hundreds of people fail, so I am impressed.”
Sato later stood up and showed off her swollen stomach and encouraged fellow customers to feel how cold and hard it was. She said it was the world’s coldest belly. 
Sato, a competitive eater for 15 years, said while she had done cold food challenges before, this challenge was the first with a time limit, which made it harder to do.