Man v. Food Season 2 Episode 19: Man v. Food Miami Live
This two hour Man v. Food special comes from Miami live celebrating the superbowl. Adam Richman throws a massive tailgate party in Miami in the parking lot of Alexander Hotel in South Beach, the site of Shula’s Steakhouse. Adam visits with his fans, eating tailgate food and taking on the monstrous Shula’s 48 oz. steak challenge live on TV at the end of the show. Fans are dressed in Man v. Food t-shirts and a few fans are dressed in pizza, hot dog and steak costumes. The show features two sports announcers who treat the show as a football game, while cheerleaders in full garb are cheering for Adam. Television viewers were able to vote on the best “Fan v. Food” challenge photos online of Man v. Food fans, shown with a mega food challenge of their own.
Shula’s steak challenge has been tried by 80,000 restaurant visitors, with only two people ever completing the challenge. Restaurant visitors have no time limit in order to complete the challenge. Shula’s steak challenge features a 48 oz. porterhouse steak grilled live for Adam to feast on. Adam has 20 minutes to finish the entire steak, not much time to accomplish this impressive feat. Shula’s uses the best angus beef steak available for the challenge.
The crowd cheers Adam as the show starts. Adam points out the many tailgate snack foods available for the audience featuring local restaurants providing Philly cheesesteaks, hot wings and huge deli sandwiches for the crowd.
Pre-taped segments showed Adam visiting local restaurants to sample their best dishes. The first taped segment shows Adam visiting Sarussi restaurant and sampling their Cuban sandwiches. Adam tries their Cubano sandwich “The Sarrusi Original”, a 16 inch by 4 inch sandwich filled with 20 slices of baked ham, 15 slices of Cuban roasted pork, 8 slices of mozzarella cheese, freshly baked bread slathered in garlic butter, then the meats are topped with pickles and a spicy sauce. Adam takes a bite, closes his eyes as he relishes the taste, then tells the restaurant owner he wants to move next door to the restaurant because the sandwich is so delicious he would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Another taped segment shows Adam visiting Joe’s Stone Crabs restaurant to taste their “Joe’s Jumbo Stone Crab Claws” special. Adam finds out fishermen catch stone crabs and remove one claw, which grows back in six months. This means the crabs continue to live and regrow their claws instead of dying like most caught crabs do. Adam tries his hand at cracking some of the crab claws with a mallet, not so easy to do as he finds out. Adam finally gets the chance to try the crab claws and mentions how sweet and flaky the crab meat is. Adam and the restaurant owner finish the meal with their famous Key Lime pie for dessert.
The next taped segment shows Adam visiting La Moon restaurant to try their stacked hot dog special “Supermoon Perro”, a 9 1/2 inch long dog. This gigantic hot dog features an all beef hot dog, chorizo, bacon, melted mozzarella, fried shoestring potato sticks, mayo, pink mayo, ketchup, homemade mustard and a pineapple sauce, topped with a hard boiled quail egg speared into the hot dog. Adam is dubious about the addition of the pineapple sauce but becomes a convert quickly as he bites into the delectable hot dog.
Adam runs a few live food challenges for the audience during the show. The first challenge takes four audience members, two New Orleans fans and two Indianapolis fans who chow down on huge 10 pound angus beef hamburgers to see which team can eat the most burger in 15 minutes. The hamburgers are cut in quarters using hacksaws. In the end, the challenge is won by the Indianapolis team who receive free t-shirts, to great cheers from the crowd. The second live food challenge for the audience features hot wings using habenero sauce. Each team must down three hot wings each to win the challenge. Two teams of three linebackers comprise the challenge, including Travel Channel host Dhani Jones. The wings go down one by one, with Dhani’s team winning the hot wing challenge. Glasses of milk are ready to be drunk after this hot sauce challenge.
The last taped segments show Adam gearing up for the big steak challenge with the help of coach Don Shula, who gives him a pep talk and takes him through a number of football warm-up exercises. Shula delivers a taped message near the end of the show to encourage Adam during the final minutes of the food challenge.
Adam is backstage preparing for the challenge, iPod buds plugged in his ears. Adam focuses, pacing back and forth before the event begins. Adam arrives to the challenge dressed in a black tuxedo. Suddenly Adam tears away the tuxedo to reveal a t-shirt and jeans as the crowd screams approval. The announcers talk about the event as if its a football game, giving odds on Adam’s chances to win the challenge. The announcer states Adam’s wins this season so far for Man v. Food are 24 wins for man vs 14 wins for food. The 48 oz. steak for Adam’s Shula’s steak challenge arrives on the plate. Adam dabs the juice of the steak behind each ear like perfume, then begins the 20 minute steak challenge while the audience chants “eat that meat”, “yes you can” and “let’s go Adam, let’s go” over and over.
Adam devours the steak quickly and is 1/3 of the way through the steak at the 4 minute mark. After 12 minutes Adam has 24 oz. of the 48 oz. steak eaten, but starts complaining about his jaw hurting from the excessive chewing of the steak. The announcers states Adam seems to have the “meat sweats” and might have a “beef drunk” going on as Adam rolls his eyes at the amount of meat and wipes his brow while eating. The steak cam shows up close how little is left of the steak on the bone. At 7 minutes Adam asks coach Shula’s son if the two bites from the steak bone he has left qualify as the final bites and he says yes. Adam downs the first bite, grimacing from jaw pain, then stands to announce the final bite, finishing the steak challenge with 3 minutes and 23 seconds left on the clock. Adam completes the challenge to cheers from his fans and once again, in the challenge of man vs food, man won.
Watch Man v. Food Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on The Travel Channel.
