There's a Simpsons episode in which Homer gets banned from an all-you-can-eat restaurant—the Frying Dutchman—because of his insatiable appetite. It was all fun and games on TV. But this nightmare actually happened in Bavaria last September when a sushi buffet barred customer Jaroslav Bobrowski from coming back.
Unlike noted slob Homer Simpson, Jaroslav Bobrowski is a 30-year-old iron man triathlete and fitness trainer. His regimen involves fasting for 20 hours, then gorging himself, which is what he did at his local sushi place—the kind with conveyor belts offering an endless array of raw fish. But after two hours, Bobrowski says, those plates just started piling up on his table; servers stopped coming by to clear them off. When he went to pay, he was told by the cashier he had officially been banned. Or as the Germans say, Hausverbot.
Bobrowski strongly disputes media claims that he polished off 100 plates of sushi, telling Suddeutsche Zeitung it was more like 80. But 80 plates for less than $20 per person was more than the restaurant could afford.
In the Simpsons episode, the Frying Dutchman's owner (the sea captain) says Homer "is no man. 'Tis a remorseless eating machine." Similarly, the sushi proprietor told the Passauer Neue Presse that Bobrowski "eats for five people. That is not normal."
No, it is not normal. It's beyond normal. It's superhuman. Bobrowski put "all you can eat" to the test and triumphed, although he has no plans to turn this into a legal challenge.
As for a future in competitive eating, Bobrowski declines, explaining to Süddeutsche Zeitung that although he consumes gargantuan portions, "I eat at a normal tempo."
In what will rival John F. Kennedy's Ich bin ein Berliner speech, Bobrowski told the Passauer Neue Presse, "Ich esse, bis ich satt bin." I eat until I am full.
Congratulations Jaroslav Bobrowski. You are a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.
