Man V. Food - The Alaska edition

Posted by playblog

Posted: October 1, 2009 - 4:44 pm

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Adam RichmanYesterday evening, rumors were buzzing around that Adam Richman from The Travel Channel’s “Man Vs. Food” program was in town. It wasn’t a total surprise - Play food reviewer Rachael Fisher had already started working on a story about his trip up here.

When we heard that Richman would be at Humpy’s Rachael made some calls and talked to the event manager who said she hadn’t heard of it but would talk to the general manager. She called right back and said it was not true. Still, reports kept coming on Twitter, so Rachael decided to check it out.

When she showed up at 7 p.m. there were signs on the doors that said no photos or video were allowed and the servers and bouncers said they didn’t know what was going on. Rachael later overheard one server talk to her friends about denying the media and mentioned a photo opp for staff after the filming was complete. When someone asked a server if Adam was planning on sitting at a reserved table she replied, "I think so." Obviously we were not getting the whole story.

Rachael ended up sitting by a group who said they had spotted Adam in the bar around 4 p.m. and had returned later to see him. They said they heard Adam planned to eat the king crab pot, a mix of a half pound of shrimp, three pounds of crab, veggies, starch and a pitcher of Alaska-brewed beer. The pot’s price tag was $99 and was supposed to feed two to three people.

I had headed home for dinner, but was staying connected with Rachael and tweeting reports from the Play account. After I announced what we thought Adam would be eating, I got a reply from him via the Man Vs. Food Twitter account.

"Where you getcho information from, cuz?" - The Beasties. Sorry, but you are ill-informed broham. Untrue. -AR

Confused, I texted Rachael who said they had just announced that he would be starting in 10 minutes.

When I showed up at 9:30 p.m. there was a good crowd and most tables were full. I sat in a table by the sound booth with three women who appeared to have been drinking since they spotted Adam earlier in the day.

He didn’t come out for about an hour, and then when he did – he shook hands and did on-camera interviews with tables for about another hour and listened to his iPod. I’m not sure, but I think he told someone he was bumping old Sade.

At this point, a woman who had been drinking got up in Adam’s face and challenged him to . . . well, it’s not really clear what she was talking about. When she was asked to sit down, she said, “Adam just got punked by Alaska!” She was then escorted out. She later called her cousins several times to ask if they were coming to Koots. This was especially funny to the guys at the table who said they didn’t watch the Food Network (wrong channel, dudes) and they didn’t know who “Alex” was.

After some instructions on cheering: “Be extra loud when we tell you to” and camera etiquette, “Don’t stare at the camera, you’ll look stupid and we will too,” the filming started.

A chef brought out the Kodiak arrest food challenge – seven crab cakes, a foot of sausage, three pounds of king crab legs, sides and a wild berry crisp with ice cream for dessert. Adam had to eat it all in an hour-and-a-half without leaving the table to win a shirt that said, “I got crabs at Humpy’s.”

Did he do it? C’mon, I’m not going to tell you that. Watch the show Nov. 18 on the Travel Channel.

-- Spencer Shroyer

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