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Wales Online
Wales Online
Entertainment
Bethany Gavaghan

We bought the giant sandwich made in a Wickes car park that competitive eaters from around the world come to try and it didn't end well

In a Wickes car park in Bridgend lies one of Earth's great endeavours. Painstakingly crafted in a humble burger van, this feat of engineering and gastronomy has taken more victims than it has calories.

In fact only four heroes have ever conquered the Monster Sandwich Challenge. They include YouTube competitive eater Adam Moran whose 2.51m subscribers saw the BeardMeetsFood star polish his plate in 13 minutes and 33 seconds.

He was the first ever to finish it and said afterwards: "Meg's Grill and Chill is a cool little place. We wanted to swing by especially since this thing had been undefeated for two and a half years, and the food was good!"

Read next: A burger van is serving a full Welsh breakfast INSIDE a loaf of bread

More recently another food influencer and queen of competitive eating, Katina Eats Kilos, from Washington came all the way from the US to try this beast of a sarnie. The YouTuber with 505,000 subscribers remains the only woman to ever take it on and win, finishing it in 21 minutes.

"This place is pretty cool," she said afterwards. "We're in a parking lot of a Wickes which is like the Home Depot of Wales."

The aim is simple, to finish off the 4,000 calorie baguette in it in one sitting. It's sadistic inventor is Megan Israel, who runs Meg's Grill and Chill. If anyone eats the whole thing in 45 minutes, the sandwich is on the house, otherwise it's £23.

The clock starts as soon as you take the first bite. And inside the huge roll, there are sausages, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, hash browns, eggs, and "best of all", according to Megan- baked beans.

Megan Israel, next to the 4,000 calorie breakfast sandwich that only four people have ever managed to finish. (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

Discussing how she came up with the idea, Megan told WalesOnline: "To be honest I sat there one evening and thought I just want to do something different to other burger vans in the area. As you can see through my menu we do a variety of different things.

"But the breakfast challenge was created by myself. We just wanted to do something fun and something that the community could be a part of and create something to talk about and it's actually gone down pretty well.

"To start off with it was just members of the community giving it a go and to be honest nobody got anywhere near. And then we were very lucky one day, we had Meats Food who turned up here and he was the first person to ever complete it."

Megan's burger van has been thriving, and she is hoping all the good business will continue (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
There is also loads more to choose from at the unusual burger van nestled in Bridgend. (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

Megan has never finished one of the sandwiches herself and believes what usually holds people back from finishing it is the tiger bread because it is so chewy. Considering what the key to success is when it comes to defeating the Monster Sandwich, Megan said: "Good luck is the only thing I can say.

"My only advice is to initially take your time. People always rush at the beginning and they get full so I'd say wait for it to cool down and try and take your time and pace yourself."

A closer look at what is inside the "monster sandwich." (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

We visited the van to see how the sandwich is made, and get a feel for exactly how big it is. But we wouldn't be getting the true experience unless we tried some ourselves.

Fearing what health and safety would make of this article, we decided to ask three WalesOnline reporters to eat as much of the sandwich as they wanted in one sitting, and the results were frankly pathetic.

Determined WalesOnline reporters attempting to finish some of the sandwich. Pictured Ben (left), Steph (middle) and Ryan (right). (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

Steph finished hers in a flash but could not face the thought of eating more. She said: "The bread is really nice, it's really good quality bread as it's tiger bread. I'm really enjoying the hash brown.

"The meat flavours are perhaps getting a little bit lost but the beans are coming through and I personally haven't yet hit my egg."

Ben was slightly less enthusiastic, noting: "It is obscene.

"Each bite of this feels like it takes about 10 minutes to get through and you kind of can't even sense the individual flavours in it but it does taste like a full English so if that's what you're looking for here it is."

This 4,000 calorie sandwich is packed with ingredients, from sausages- to black pudding. (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

And Ryan, who also tried it out said: "This feels like a proper English breakfast sandwich and the kind of thing you'd want after a night out. Plenty packed in there... feels like a heart attack in a sandwich.

"I may struggle to finish it but it's good."

No heroes were born here today, but the legend of the Monster Sandwich lives on.

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