What’s the most lumpia you’ve ever eaten in one sitting? How fast did you consume the savory, starchy rolls of meat and cabbage? Do you think you could eat more than the stranger standing beside you?
These are questions you can answer at the South Bay’s 2nd Annual Lumpia Eating Contest, set to take place in Milpitas on Saturday, March 30.
The food extravaganza was originally conceived by three childhood friends — Keith Canda, Chris Zamora, and Anthony Cruzet — who run a San Jose food truck called Mestizo.
“It was talked about throughout the Bay Area, and it’s never happened in [the San Jose area] before. It came together from just us sharing our ideas and getting the community involved,” Zamora says.
Largely considered to be the Bay Area’s sprawling mecca for immigrant foods, San Jose’s culinary scene often gets overshadowed by the trendier, more bustling and outwardly attractive scenes in nearby San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. But as homegrown locals, the Mestizo boys know better. Last year, they aspired to showcase San Jose’s food offerings by throwing their inaugural Lumpia Eating Contest in San Jose’s Japantown . And it was a hit.
Organized in collaboration with the legendary streetwear brand Cukui, as well as Krucial Printing, the lumpia-inhaling spectacle drew a block’s worth of onlookers and two tables of hungry eaters who were determined to be crowned the Bay Area’s king (or queen) of lumpia. The winner devoured 30 rolls in under five minutes.
