Malt-astic voyage
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University-area favorite Otto's Malt Shop
hosts Guinness Book of World Records attempt
By: Aaron Thompson
The scream of high-powered blenders pierces the small,
"hole-in-the-wall" style restaurant of Otto's Malt shop late on a muggy
Friday afternoon.
Controlling the almost demonic sounding tools, eight people manhandle
the 60 gallons of fresh ice cream and malt flavoring and pour them into
a gigantic plastic garbage can painted and designed to look like a malt
cup.
As the diligent malt-mates and matrons pour the lactose infused, sweet
cream into the can, the smell of ice crème fills the restaurant.
Distracted by the sheer size of it, a small boy with brown hair
struggles to look over the rim of the can.
"Daddy look at all that ice cream," he says with delight. "Do you think
we can eat it?"
While some people may find humor in the construction of gigantic malts,
to Otto Miller owner of Otto's Malt Shop at 4440 S. Maryland Parkway,
the construction of a world-record-breaking malt has always been a dream
of Miller, since his days back in his native Kansas City.
"I've always wanted to do something like build the world's largest
banana split," Miller said. "Unfortunately we only have the resources to
build the world's largest malt."
After closing his original malt shop in his home of Kansas City and
moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, Miller re-opened his
shop across from UNLV and got back into the malt business.
Yet on this sticky Friday afternoon, Miller's love for breaking records
isn't confined to constructing large malts. On this day, a number of
UNLV students and members of the community converge on the malt shop to
take on a grueling challenge.
The challenge? To be the fastest eater of both malts and ice cream in
the entire world.
"We want to set a Guinness record tonight," says Darren LaDelfa,
marketing director for Otto's. "Guinness knows about this and we want to
show them what we can do."
According to LaDelfa, the Guinness world record for eating ice cream
stands at 9.3 ounces of ice cream with a teaspoon in 30 seconds set in
Florida by Diego Siu.
"We have to pack the ice-cream into the cup," LaDelfa said. "It won't be
easy."
A number of other challenges, including the fastest time to consume a
10-ounce malt are also held. The fastest time to eat a malt as well as
the gigantic malt are not yet records in the Guinness book but the
ice-cream eating record has stood unbeaten since 2003.
Guinness rules say the ice cream must be hard packed, and be left to sit
outside from the freezer for five minutes before the competition begins.
The only item that can be used is a teaspoon, no other hand
Outside, a number of people sign up to take on the numerous eating
challenges.
A tall, slender girl, 23-year-old Lizzy Yu says that she wanted to
compete because of her love for food and of competitive eating.
"I eat a lot," Yu, said. "I like food and I like to eat [competitively]
for fun!
Yu, who doesn't admit to being nervous, says though she is excited to
compete despite her allergy to lactose containing products.
"I'm excited," Yu said. "But I have my anti-allergy pills here.
Afterwards I'm totally going to go hit the toilet."
Yu, and a number of other competitors take a seat. Only 15 people were
allowed to compete and due to the small size of competition area, only
five are allowed to eat at once.
After three heats of Malt eating, only five are left for the final,
fastest competition.
The five competitors, including Rebel Yell staff writer Daniel Steffey
take a seat. LaDelfa takes out a stopwatch, zeros it out and with a drop
of his hand; he yells "GO!" emphatically.
Steffy, Yu and three others scoop the malt into their mouths at
lightning speed.
However Steffey, with about eight inches and dozens more pounds on Yu,
reduces her to a puddle, devouring his malt in 17 seconds.
Not discouraged, Yu finishes her tasty treat in 28 seconds.
"My adrenalne is pumping," exclaims Yu as she cleans the malt off of her
face. "Now I'm a little nervous, I can't believe I did that."
While the thrill that comes from competitive eating is not necessarily
known, 21-year-old Anasatica Kelly admits to having had actual
discussions with her boyfriend about competitive eating.
"We've talked about competitive eating before," Kelly said. "I guess I'm
proud of [my boyfriend] no-matter what he does."
Kelly's boyfriend, UNLV student Kevin Bowman, shattered his spoon during
the ice cream eating competition shatter his spoon and in disgust,
breaks open his cup to eat the ice-cream with his hands, finishing first
but not breaking the world record.
"I could go another round," Bowman says. "Even though my tongue is
almost frozen."
After all the fun and games are over, Miller and his staff finish the
monstrous malt and require six men to carry it outside.
As the gargantuan dairy product is placed outside, it is topped off with
a huge red balloon to symbolize a cherry.
Thirty plus people gather around it and top it off with more than a
dozen whipped cream dispensers provided by Miller. Once the whipped
creaming is done, the malt is now complete.
Like a scene out of a Dickens' novel, a dozens gather around the malt
and hold their cup out to the front with both hands as Miller grabs a
huge ladle and scoops out malt to crowd.
"This has been a lot of fun," says Miller as he cleans up the mess from
the back room. In the excitement, Miller says they dropped a load of
malt onto the floor, covering everything in the back room with white
malted ice cream.
"For us, events like this are a good thing. We get to try to break some
records, we get a little press and we make people happy. Who can't be
proud of that?"
