Dorelle's diet's earns the dough

BRADLEY AMBROSE/Taranaki Daily News

Dorelle Hastelow, 27, was too good, brushing the boys aside on her way to the crown.

BRADLEY AMBROSE

Thomas Steventon, 15, chows down a lamb vindaloo at Flame Restaurant's hot and exotic food contest last night.

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Dorelle Hastelow has eaten dog and unhatched chickens, so scoffing down a scorpion was no problem.

But the 27-year-old from Stratford says she has never eaten food as hot as she ate last night.

It didn't matter. The plucky lass swept five would-be tough guys before her, eating her way to victory in Flame Restaurant's Fear Factor-inspired hot and exotic food contest.

The rules were simple. Six contestants, four dishes, first person finished took the dough.

Dorelle didn't always look a likely champion.

When the first dish, one green and one red chilli, was placed on the table her spirits dropped.

While the bloke beside her downed his chilli with the effortless grace of Homer Simpson with a mouth full of wax, she struggled to chomp it down.

"I've got to go, I can't do this," she said fanning herself frantically.

"The next one had better be disgusting or I'm not doing it.

"I can do disgusting and I can do weird but I can't do hot."

She got her wish, the scorpion was devoured with ease, and just like the All Blacks v France the tide had turned and there was simply no stopping her, hot food or not.

Thomas Steventon tried to stem the tide but the 15-year-old with a professed love of hot food just couldn't foot it.

"She was too good," he gasped.

"It just proved too hot for me."

As she polished off the last of three lamb vindaloos - hot, extra hot and extremely hot - she was doing it tough but digging deep.

"Have we got people for CPR here? I can't feel my fingers, I seriously can't feel my fingers."

And then it was over.

The $100 prize, the glory and the fame were hers.

"I didn't want to drop out in the first round," she said afterwards. "But then I saw the chillies and I thought `I'm going to drop out,' and then I didn't.

"My lips hurt and my throat hurts and my fingers are tingling and that's about it."

- © Fairfax NZ News