I recently received an Instagram message from a fan/friend named “Mh Saeed,” asking if I’ve ever had a restaurant food challenge meal that didn’t taste that great, but didn’t say anything negative about it while filming the video? This is a common question many people ask, so I wanted to cover that topic in a blog post – why I almost always review restaurant food challenge meals positively. If you’ve watched even one video, you probably heard me call the food delicious and point out various things I liked about the major components of the meal. I try to complement little things too, without talking so much that I ruin the flow of the video. A landslide majority of the time, this is genuine and I truly do like the meal. I’m fortunate to have a very open food palate of taste preferences.

As many subscribers know, there are only a few food items I don’t like – blue cheese and anything so spicy that it numbs my mouth. That is pretty much it, and I’ll eat blue cheese if I have to as part of a food challenge, usually followed by sips of Diet Coke or Pepsi to overpower the “expired a few years ago” taste. I’m open to pretty much everything else that isn’t moving, and is cooked, especially if there is someone with me who takes a bite first (and lives). I love pickles, onions, mushrooms, and the other stuff some people hate.

With over 2.5 million combined followers, restaurants know their food will be seen by lots of people, so 98% of them do all they can to prepare my food up to the highest standards possible. I get to each restaurant 1-1.5 hours early so I can plan everything out with the owners and chefs, prior to guests / subscribers arriving. When applicable, I tell them my cheese preference, how I want the meat cooked, and we sort out all the other little details chefs need to know when cooking food. We also make sure it will all be presented in a way that looks great on video and in pictures, since captivating “thumbnails” are nowadays so important. We do all that we can to plan ahead to optimize the taste, texture, and look of the food for me, but of course not every restaurant challenge goes perfect.

There are infrequent times when I don’t fully enjoy the food I’m eating, but there is no chance I’d ever consider blaming the chefs or saying anything negative that would negatively portray the restaurant in general. After all, Atlas & Zeus Promotions was established to positively promote restaurants and their food challenges – to inspire others to want to try the challenge too, or just check out the restaurant in general. True chefs by nature love food, and because of that, many watch videos about food. It’s crazy these days how many chefs follow our videos and get very very excited once they find out I am coming for a challenge – more than 25% of the time.

Down in Athens, Texas when I attempted the “Home of the Hamburger” Craft Burger Challenge at Athens Burger Bar, the chef Cole’s fiancé told me afterwards that they were getting married in just a few days, but instead of that, he just wouldn’t stop talking about how excited he was about me coming to attempt the burger challenge. That is awesome!! Thankfully, that entire challenge meal was incredible, but even if it didn’t turn out well, there is no chance that I would ever say anything negative. Not only am I not that type of person, but also 99.9% of the times where I don’t particularly enjoy the food, it’s because of one or more of the following 3 reasons:

3 Reasons Why My Food Sometimes Isn’t Perfect

1) The kitchen staff gets overloaded by other orders – My team always warns restaurants that lots of people could potentially show up to watch my challenges, and eat and/or drink as well. Even factoring in all the variables, sometimes more people come than the restaurant expected and was prepared for (especially nowadays since lots of restaurants have staff shortages). Thanks and huge shoutout to all the people who attend events!! Even when prepared, you can’t really be ready for 15-20 orders to come in at around the same time. There are times when staff is so focused on other customers, that my challenge meal gets put on the “back burner.” That is okay because subscribers and their regular customers come first, but preparation of my meal tends to get rushed in these situations, not always resulting in the best product. Since I am usually the one leading the charge to get the challenge meal done to respect everyone’s time and get started, it would be absurd for me to get upset by food not being as good as it would be normally.

2) The chef(s) has no experience preparing the supersized challenge meal – You don’t need a lot of hands and feet to count the number of “experienced eaters” who still actively do restaurant food challenges. When anyone says competitive eating is a growing sport, I am quick to provide as many reasons as needed to prove that claim false. With that said, excluding the 72oz Big Texan Steak Challenge in Amarillo, Texas (the most popular food challenge in the world), restaurants with food challenges don’t regularly have customers ordering their challenge. The only other exception would be restaurants that offer a big pizza, sandwich, burger, or other huge food item that is already on the menu and commonly ordered by families/groups. You can’t do something well if you have no practice doing it, and this especially applies to cooking a 4lb beef burger patty. There are times when supersized components get under or overcooked, and it would be just as absurd to get upset at a chef who hasn’t really had the opportunity to cook it before.

3) I took too long taking pictures, videos, and getting everything set up – Years ago, I read an article about a study that a major restaurant chain underwent, trying to figure out why there was a significant increase in customer complaints regarding the food. It was discovered that it wasn’t really the fault of the restaurant at all. It was because more and more people started taking longer to take pictures of their food for Instagram and other social media platforms. By the time they were done and read to eat, the food was cooled down and no longer enjoyable, blaming it on the restaurant. How ridiculous is that? I knowingly do the same thing with all my challenge meals, and I often have people telling me I better start soon or the food will get cold. Sometimes it does and other times it doesn’t, before I finally start. I’d rather have an excellent video of room temperature food than a terrible video of hot food. Once the camera turns on and my livestream starts, I don’t get to check it again, so I make sure it is all set up right the first time, before I start. Since it’s my choice to do that, it would be ridiculous to complain about my smoked beef brisket being tough, or burger being dry.

It should be illegal in some situations to complain about the taste of food. Once anyone pours water on their plate, their opinion on the taste of that food is erroneous, and YouTube should demonetize the video if anything negative is spoken about it. There are only a few situations where a restaurant has tried to make a food challenge meal taste bad for me. Restaurants have made meals larger as you all know, but that doesn’t usually impact the taste. I don’t comment when people want a top 10 worst tasting food challenges video, because that is just too much negativity. I’m not shy though to tell my #1 worst tasting challenge, which is this team challenge I barely beat with “Magic” Mitch Dombrowski in Thessaloniki, Greece. With at least some faith in humanity, I cannot let myself believe that anyone could think this burger sandwich prepared for us might taste good. The owner was laughing while adding every sauce in the kitchen. The funny thing is that while this is my worst tasting food challenge, it’s the only one I won of the three I tried in Greece!!

I haven’t had any restaurants maliciously try to make the food taste terrible in many years. I hope that never happens, because I will be brutally honest about the taste and restaurant in general, which wouldn’t be fun for me to film. I try to always be uplifting and as positive as possible. Benevolence (kindness) is what the “B” stands for in BOOM. In fact, one of my favorite complements is when all the comments on a video are about how delicious the food looked, when in reality I didn’t enjoy it too much. I did my job well, since I wouldn’t want a restaurant to be portrayed negatively based on food the chefs never cook who were thrown off by too many people coming to watch and support their restaurant. If you think it is inauthentic of me to feel that way and run my business, then oh well.

With all that said, there are ways to tell if I don’t really like the food. There are some situations when my body is just not feeling well, and I start drinking diet soda way earlier than usual. More often than not though, if I start drinking soda really early, it’s because the food isn’t tasting right. If I add sauce to meat or anything else that I don’t normally put on foods, that is a major sign as well. Pouring ketchup or BBQ sauce on to a burger YELLS that it is dry. On the other hand though, adding A1 to a giant steak can go either way. In some cases, yes the steak meat is dry. There could be some situations though where I am just adding the A1 sauce to help me chew and swallow faster. You can sometimes tell my enjoyment based on reactions, but there is a lot more potential for error with that.

I hope you all enjoyed this blog post since like I said, quite a few people do bring this up in comments or messages. I don’t ever want to be labeled as a “prima-donna” or have owners and chefs nervous about me coming to their restaurant to enjoy their food. I am always 100% on their team until they make known they are not on our team, if that makes sense. Thankfully, that has only occurred a few times. I appreciate everyone watching our videos, and especially you if you’ve taken the time to read this entire post. If you do have a question you’d like for me to answer in a future blog post, please contact me or message me on social media. Thanks for your time and always remember to Win Before You Begin!! I hope you enjoy all the upcoming Midwest USA food challenge videos!!

To go back and check out other Randy’s Blog posts, please click here!!

Note: I couldn’t figure out what thumbnail picture to use, and finally just picked the one I did, featuring The “Gallon of Milkshake” Challenge at Legendairy Milkshake Bar in Nashville, TN. All eight milkshakes were incredibly delicious!! Click to watch the video!!