Johnny Wu is eating an egg salad and tuna sandwich and drinking a venti cup of coffee, a beverage he loves. “This is lunch,” he says. It’s less food than expected. After all, Wu is Hong Kong’s top competitive eater. He holds ten competitive-eating championship titles, including ‘King of Spicy Hong Kong’.

Outside of the ‘sport’, he’s an adventurous diner, having eaten scorpion, crocodile, swan, tiger, wolf, chameleon, bear, moose, and raccoon while on trips abroad.

In the semi-finals of his first major competition in 2005, he ate 76 steamed dumplings in eight minutes to finish second to Japanese competitive eating superstar Takeru Kobayashi, who ate 83. In the finals of that competition, Wu ate 47 pork buns in 12 minutes to Kobayashi’s 100.

“A friend of mine knew that I really like to eat, so he called and asked me to do the competition for fun,” says the personable 38-year-old father of two, who began his amateur career by winning a TVB San Miguel fastest drinker contest in 1999. “I didn’t know that Kobayashi was coming to Hong Kong. When I saw that he was in the competition, it ignited my competitive spirit.” A year later, Wu ate against 98-pound American Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, one of the five best professional eaters in the world, finishing second once again.

Wu and Kobayashi had a rematch this past March in Suzhou. Wu ate 65 pieces of salmon sushi in 20 minutes to finish second once again; Kobayashi ate 164 pieces to take the title. “We had a good time -- in addition to competing we went sightseeing and shopping together… Kobayashi is fun to hang out with.”

In his everyday life, Wu is a freelance information technology specialist. His passion for computers is equal to his love of eating. He keeps his private life separate from his public persona. When he competitive eats, he dons a baseball cap and tinted glasses. His wife and children have never seen him compete; he knows that if they were in the audience watching, he would be too nervous to eat in top form. One of the few times he has lost a competition in Hong Kong, it was in his own neighbourhood of Tseung Kwan O. Home field is not an advantage for him. “The pressure was too great,” he says. “Of the four hundred spectators, I knew over one hundred of them. I lost my concentration.”

Ironically, since he began competitive eating, Wu has lost 30 pounds. “When I eat that much,” he says, “I feel a need to get some exercise and burn off fat.” Wu’s preparation for the sport is quite simple. “I don’t train at all,” he confesses. “The month before a competition, I’ll eat more to increase the size of my stomach. That helps a lot during the competition. When I’m not competing, I don’t eat very much. I eat a lot of vegetables and a little meat – a real showboat health routine.” He laughs. “Eating is an exercise. It helps your digestive system. Also, when I’m not competing, I eat less, and I’m lazier about getting exercise.”

Doretta Lau