If you think the ideal way to eat shrimp wontons is to partake daintily in between genteel sips of jasmine tea at Yung Kee, look away now. The humble har gow - in its most mass-produced form - has become the latest craze to sweep the distended, dyspeptic and sometimes disgusting world of competitive eating.
Thai food giant CP Group, which churns out microwaveable wontons by the millions, is behind the Biggest Eater, a regional speed-eating contest that will see hungry hopefuls from Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia pit their bottomless pits against the best Thailand has to offer at the grand finale in Bangkok's Siam Paragon shopping mall on Saturday.
This year the title has attracted a who's who of the world's top competitive eaters, along with more than 1,000 amateur nibblers hoping to gorge their way to the US$3,000 grand prize.
In the Hong Kong leg of the competition, which took place in November, waif-like Natalie Chin Hung-yuk scoffed 74 wontons in the allotted eight minutes. Men's division winner Lam Yat-ming beat local hero Johnny Wu Hung-shing by downing 131 wontons before the buzzer.
But their feats paled beside a casual display of speed eating by last year's grand champion, Joey Chestnut. The American tossed back 225 slippery shrimp bits for fun, nowhere near the 380 he downed to become the 2010 Biggest Eater men's champion, beating Japan's Takeru 'Tsunami' Kobayashi. However, Chestnut was knocked out of this year's competition by fellow American Tim 'Eater X' Janus.
CP is basking in the massive publicity its stunt marketing has garnered. But surely, if the ultimate aim is to sell more wontons, there's a risk of reverse psychology taking hold - will people become so grossed out by the spectacle that they can't face another wonton? Could it be a coincidence that CP Group rhymes with Augustus Gloop, the glutton from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who meets a sticky end in a river of chocolate? What if one of the contestants explodes, spraying the crowd with half-digested shrimp and rice noodles? And, with 65,000 crustaceans crammed down by contestants this year alone, aren't they also eating into CP's profits?