He’s Mr. Ice guy!
A Park Slope man dominated an ice-cream-eating contest that a Fifth Avenue frosty-treat purveyor hosted on Saturday, scarfing down a whole pint in one minute and 41 seconds — a feat of ingestion that even a veteran scoop slurper said
he could not match.
“I’ve eaten ice cream every day for the last 10 years, and I couldn’t do it that fast,” said Jonathan Bayer, the owner of Sky Ice at 63 Fifth Ave, who hosted the competition. “So when I saw that, I was amazed.”
This year’s champion, Dan Erdheim, upset the brief reign of Ditmas Park resident Patrick Garcia, who took home the title last year after edging out a more experienced — and intoxicated — competitive eater, Jo Rose.
Erdheim crushed both men in the second-annual brain-freeze-inducing battle, besting runner-up Garcia’s time of two minutes and 52 seconds by more than one minute — a chilling feat that wowed the contest’s spectators, according to the head honcho of the neighborhood’s business-advocacy group.
“You kind of feel cold for them,” said Mark Caserta, who dressed as an ice-cream cone for the event.
Erdheim emerged victorious because of his on-the-fly strategy for getting the confection out of its container and into his mouth, according to Bayer, who said that he craftily froze the Thai Tea-flavored cream served to competitors at a lower temperature than the treats he serves in-store, leaving the athletes to struggle with removing it without bending their spoons.
“That’s part of the challenge,” the shopkeeper said. “Getting the ice cream out — and then eating it.”
The winner — who earned the grand prize of a $100 Sky Ice gift certificate — relied on his head as much as his gut to out-slurp his competition, working around the edges of the container instead of plunging his utensil directly into its center, which allowed him to more easily extract chunks of the frozen sweet, Bayer said.
“It was a real-time strategy that he executed,” he said.
And the second cold-weather eating contest drew increased interest among locals and hungry athletes, according to the ice-cream maker, who said he is already looking forward to the next frozen-food face-off.
“It was amazing,” Bayer said. “Everyone had such a wonderful time. We had a bigger crowd than expected and, immediately after it was over, people were talking about next year.”
