It has been more than a decade since New York City was the site of the world dumpling eating record and despite the culinary delight being more popular now than every, nobody has broken the record.
In 2011, a new benchmark in speed eating was set at the 3rd Annual Tang’s Natural Dumpling Festival in downtown Manhattan.
Local resident Seth Grudberg consumed 18 dumplings in just two minutes, establishing a new Guinness World Records title for the most dumplings eaten in that time frame.
Festival organizers, Chef One, a local Asian food company, decided to introduce an official Guinness World Records category for dumpling eating. To qualify for the record, participants had to eat at least eight dumplings in two minutes. Additional guidelines stated that participants could not drink water during the attempt and were prohibited from using any condiments. Each dumpling had to be consumed one at a time, with competitors required to show an empty mouth after each one.
Twelve participants, divided into three groups of four, attempted to set the record. The number of dumplings eaten by individual participants ranged from seven to 17. However, Seth Grudberg outpaced all challengers with his consumption of 18 dumplings.
Despite being new to speed eating, Grudberg was no stranger to competitive eating success. “I recently entered my first eating contest last month at Fairway on the Upper West Side and won a $100 gift card for eating 50 blueberry pancakes in 10 minutes,” he disclosed at the time.
Grudberg, who learned about the competition just a day before the event, expressed his delight at setting a Guinness World Record. “I entered the contest because I grew up reading the Guinness World Records book every year. I never dreamed I would hold a world record. It feels amazingly great,” he said.
The festival featured a global array of dumplings, with varieties hailing from Korea, Ukraine, China, India, France, Italy, Portugal, and America. Attendees paid a fee to sample the diverse offerings, and all proceeds were donated to the Food Bank For New York City.