This is Jeepney and Maharlika‘s third year running the Annual Balut Eating Contest at Hester Street Fair in NYC’s Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan.

Wayne Algenio, a professional eater, has captured two of the contest’s belts in the past and on Saturday September 20th, he got his third. Algenio ate 40 balut in 5 minutes beating his last year’s record of 37.

For those of you who don’t know what a balut is, brace yourselves…a balut or balot (which means “wrapped” in Tagalog and Malay) is a developing duck embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell. It is commonly sold as streetfood in the Philippines.

Khrys Corpus (Vice Consul of the Philippine Consulate General) who was one of the judges, explained to the crowd that this delicacy is usually eaten at night and added “…you’ll find out later why”. I didn’t really understand what she meant by that until Nicole Ponseca, co-owner of Filipino restaurants, Jeepney and Maharlika, explained that it’s also known as “The Filipino Viagra”.

Wayne ate 40. I’ll leave it at that.

Wayne says that balut is not part of his training regimen and only eats balut during competition.

Check out the full video of Wayne in action!