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Wales Online
Entertainment
Robert Harries

World record-holder polishes off epic plate of food at Welsh restaurant

A Guinness World Record-holder and YouTube star "absolutely smashed” a huge and delicious-looking food challenge when she visited a restaurant in Carmarthen. Leah Shutkever is a competitive eater from Birmingham who has amassed a huge following on social media thanks to her outrageous ability to pack away incredible amounts of food in a short space of time.

She has broken more than 25 world records for eating in the past three years including the most spring rolls eaten in one minute, the most lasagne eaten in 30 seconds, the fastest time to eat a Terry's Chocolate Orange, the most marshmallows eaten in one minute, and the fastest time recorded to drink one litre of gravy. She also once ate 19 McDonald’s chicken nuggets in a minute.

On her trip to Carmarthen she visited street food restaurant Sloppy Joe’s in the centre of town. The venue is known for its burgers, hot dogs, fries, ice creams and much more besides. Since opening in October 2020, they have prepared different eating challenges for people to take on with more on the way in 2023. Leah’s challenge was called Man vs Joe and was, simply, to eat a large platter of food in as fast a time as possible. But nobody else has ever finished the same platter at Sloppy Joe’s.

Read more: The three Welsh gastropubs named the best in the UK all sat in a 30-mile radius

In total the challenge consisted of: two double bacon and cheese burgers, a loaded hot dog, a 1lb portion of fries topped with melted cheese and nacho cheese sauce, southern fried chicken strips, six giant onion rings, a bowl of coleslaw, a bowl of macaroni cheese, and a thick chocolate milkshake to finish off.

Leah during the challenge (Leah Shutkever)

She starts off the huge 8lb feast by going for one of the burgers, while making a start on the giant onion rings: “There’s definitely an art to onion rings and that is amazing.” After finishing one of the burgers she next goes for the loaded hot dog and then the bowl of coleslaw and the chicken strips. Next to scoff down is the second burger, which she eats in between spoonfuls of the macaroni and cheese and handfuls of the cheesy fries. As she gets to the end of the challenge the only thing left on her platter is a few fries and a bit of milkshake which she easily finishes to a round of applause.

In total the whole challenge was completed in 23 minutes and 39 seconds. Putting down her empty milkshake cup Leah said: “Guys, that was a Man vs Joe challenge at Sloppy Joe’s in Carmarthen complete in just over 23 minutes. I’m really full. The food first of all was incredible – my favourite part was probably the hot dog. The burgers were amazing but those inion rings were such a showstopper. The hardest part was probably the chicken just because chicken is so, so difficult to eat fast."

Watch the video of Leah completing the incredible challenge below:

As she was the first person to ever complete the challenge Leah was given a T-shirt and £100 in cash, which she donated to a Ukrainian charity. The video has been viewed thousands of times online by Leah’s followers, which includes 364,000 subscribers on You Tube, 623,000 followers on Facebook, and 281,000 followers on Instagram. She posted the video, which was filmed in March 2022, to her Facebook page on January 23 and people have been left aghast at the ease with which she completed the “crazy challenge”.

Kristin Ridley, who runs Sloppy Joe’s along with her husband Gary, said Leah certainly lived up to her reputation as a world record-holding competitive eater. “Leah contacted us as she saw us on social media and the type of food we do here,” said Kristin. “We usually have one person a month take on the challenge but nobody else has come close to finishing it, never mind beating the time that Leah did it in. It was crazy watching her. I have never seen anyone eat like that before.”

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