By Tim Binnall
A restaurant in China is under investigation by authorities due to a contest wherein they challenged patrons to eat over 100 dumplings as fast as possible. The strange case reportedly came to light last week when a media outlet in the country revealed that an unnamed eatery in the city of Yibin was being looked at for possibly violating a law against wasting food. What drew the attention of authorities was a social media post from the restaurant in which they trumpeted their delightfully named "king of big stomach challenge." The contest offers a future free meal as well as other prizes to the customer who can eat 108 spicy wonton dumplings the fastest.
Although the competition may sound like fun to anyone aspiring to become the Joey Chestnut of China, the country's State Administration for Market Regulation was not amused by the contest and announced that they were investigating the eatery on the grounds that it may have violated a recently enacted law which prohibits restaurants from encouraging or misleading customers "to order excessively to cause obvious waste." The weird regulation came about in 2021 in response to spate of incidents wherein Chinese social media users showcased their binge eating abilities.
Aimed at putting a stop to the trend, the law features a $1,4000 fine for restaurants that participate in what is perceived to be the aforementioned waste of food. Amazingly, the regulation also contains a whopping $14,000 fine for media outlets that present such binge eating to the public. News of the dumpling challenge sparking an official investigation has understandably been met with some criticism from residents online who make the compelling argument that the food is not being wasted if a person eats all of the offerings. That said, considering that such a law against binge eating was created in the first place, one suspects that the restaurant will likely wind up facing a fine for the dumpling blunder.