Huh? Wha? Go away. I'm on holidays.
What? It's the finals of the Laurel's Mega Parma Challenge today? Oh alright then...
I'm up! I'm up!
So you may remember a few months back we went to Ascot Vale and attempted The Laurel Hotel's Mega Parma Challenge. For those who have bad memories and can't be bothered clicking on that link, the challenge was this -
$40 for a 1.5kg parma, chips and a pint. While eating it you were on the clock, the top 6 times were asked to return for the finals where they would be pitted against each other to determine who would earn the title of Mega Parma Champion, and those finals were today.
In a perfect world we would have smashed the mega parma at the prelims and been one of the contestants at the finals, however when we tried the Mega Parma we couldn't even finish it, let alone finish it in any sort of respectable time, so we were relegated to spectate for the day. As of the morning of the finals, the leaderboard looked like this ...
Like I said, we couldn't even finish the thing, let alone get a decent time. These were champions among men.
I arrived at The Laurel at around 12 noon to find a pretty deserted pub. What should I do to fill the time? I'll give you one guess...
Only a single, regular sized parma this time, I'm not a mad man.
After finishing up that bird I moved into the main bar where things were starting to come together.
The stage had been set. The winners trophy was on display...
Now it was time for the contestants...
One by one they arrived, after a short wait it was determined that one of the six was a no-show, then things got underway.
The parmas and pints arrived from the kitchen, They were as big as I remember - if not even a little bit bigger for the finals...
The contestants took their seats, and after a short wait to let them cool for a moment, they were off.
I could try and describe how the competition went down, but it'd be easier just to watch... (I cut down a chunk in the middle for upload-time's sake)
[youtube id="GSFiaIH89J4" width="580" height="337"]
And that's all she wrote!
Competition favourite (he finished the prelim's with a time of 6 minutes and 41 seconds) Tom King had taken home the championship.
Congratulations mate! Well done. Enjoy your year's worth of free parmas - well deserved.
I've got a feeling the Laurel is going to make this a yearly event, so rest assured that you wont be hearing the last of this pub and their Mega Parma.
Thats it. I'm going back to bed.