WATCH: The eat is on as Express & Star staff take on the region's biggest food challenges

Weekend's team of intrepid reporters travelled across the Black Country and Staffordshire to take on nine of the hardest and most extreme eating contests in the region, if not the country.

From the world's hottest curry, to a breakfast that can feed a family of five, there was no holding back.

There was pain, sweat and tears as our team battled against the clock to see who would emerge victorious.

But the key question is, in the battle of Weekend vs Food . . . who won?

Let's just say, it did not go well for our chaps.

What it contains: A blend of 21 different chillies, including three of the hottest in the world, and crocodile meat

How long it has been running: Since June, 2014

How many people have conquered it: Four out of 90.

Cost: £15.95, but free if you finish it

Alarm bells rang in my head at the sight of a chef cooking my curry in a gas mask.

The fumes from a Crocodile Inferno have been known to sting the eyes and even the skin.

They say the first bite is with the eyes but as Tony Uddin, owner of the Dilshad in Cannock put the dish in front of me, it felt as though it was my eyes that had been bitten.

The chef had cooked me a crocodile, and he'd made it snappy.

And that's before I even put a piece in my mouth.

No fewer than 21 different types of chilli pepper, including the Ghost, The Trinidad scorpion Butch T and the Carolina Reaper – the hottest in the world – made up the blend that gave the crocodile its bite.

It's twice as hot as police tear gas and measures six million on the chilli scoville scale.

Crocodile meat is used because it is considered the best for keeping the flavour and the heat of the various spices.

I managed just eight mouthfuls of it before I had to throw in the towel and ask Tony for a glass of milk to douse the flames. Apparently, this was pretty good. The average is four.

Every bite stung my tongue and the back of my throat.

But it was the aftermath that was the most painful.

The crocodile made sure my stomach and my insides burned and churned for hours afterwards.

No wonder Tony made me sign a disclaimer indemnifying him in the event of the consequences of his dish.

I'm a vindaloo-ser, but when I signed on the dotted line, I knew I was setting myself up for a phall.

Contents: 24oz beef patty with bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, onion rings and salad, served with two bowls of chips and two pints of lemonade or Coca Cola

How long it has been running: Since April, 2013

How many have conquered it: The challenge has a 10 per cent success rate, with 118 attempts in the last year and 12 successes

Cost: £24.95, but free if you finish it

Due to various tales of failure from my friends, I'd heard of the Bear Grill burger challenge on many occasions. And, despite my better judgement, I decided to take it on.

The challenge consists of a 24oz beef patty, complete with bacon, Monterey Jack cheese, onion rings and salad – served with two bowls of chips and two pints of lemonade or Coca Cola. And all must be consumed within an hour. Sounds easy, right . . ? Wrong.

Despite constantly complaining whenever I put on weight, I love my food. My parents have long described my top hobby as eating and I'm no stranger to comments like 'How on earth do you eat like that?!', so I was sure I would be able to not only complete the challenge, but finish it off with plenty of time to spare. Needless to say, once confronted with the monster burger my confidence – and stomach – were shaken.

But after about 20 minutes, things were looking good. I'd eaten half the burger, the staff were stood around watching eagerly and I could hear the photographer shouting on the phone in the background 'She's actually going to do it!'

And that was when I hit 'the wall'.

So, in the hope of being able to fulfil the challenge, I moved the operation outside. A desperate measure, but it saw me manage almost another quarter of the burger and a bowl of chips.

Contents: 1.5kg of beef sausage, homemade chilli, grated cheese, jalapeño peppers, fries, home-made slaw

How long has it been running: Three years

How many people have conquered it: Three

Cost: £30, but free if you finish it

I was mildly confident going into the Monster Dog Challenge, partly because I was starving and partly because I love a challenge.

The £30, metre-long dog was daunting when it arrived on the table but I still thought it would be more than doable.

Spoiler alert – it wasn't.

It defeated me pretty unanimously as I only managed to eat two thirds of the dog and sides and am now never going to eat a hot dog again – regardless of size.

Curiously though it wasn't the bread or the sides that got me, it was the absurd amount of meat.

What isn't mentioned on the menu is that the homemade chilli and the sausage are both the same type of beef, so trying to tuck kilos of the stuff away is just painful.

I'm still clinging on to the dream that if the sausage was pork I might have been able to pull it off (I wouldn't have).

The jalapeños were a lovely addition and actually made the challenge easier as they provided a juicy texture.

The bread itself was lovely, it was quite thick but not too tough like a baguette.

It was a nice break from the kilos of meat, as were the fries.

I had the choice between beans and homemade slaw as my second side and opted for the latter. It was a good choice but the slaw was very fatty because of the amount of mayonnaise.

It was going well until half way but then hit a wall as the beef caught up with me and I had consumed too much water. I battled through to two-thirds and was very proud of my effort.

The waitress told me I did well too as she held back the laughter. I'm just another brick in the wall of shame.

What it contains: Six chicken wings covered in habanero chilli sauce. The challenge is to eat all six wings in 10 minutes without having a drink.

How long has it been running: Two years

How many people have conquered it: 40 people have conquered the challenge

Cost: £6.95

Six chicken wings in 10 minutes. Easy right? Wrong. On the face of it, this may seem one of the easier challenges but the habanero sauce they are smothered in makes them pretty much inedible.

Not being someone that ventures for anything spicier than a chicken tikka masala, it was without doubt the hottest thing I've ever eaten.

I didn't realise quite how bad it would be, going in, perhaps naively, with a big first bite, despite the overwhelming smell of habanero.

Things pretty quickly went downhill, I can't explain how much my lips were stinging.

The crucial, and cruellest, thing about this challenge is that you can't have a drink at any point, so after the first bite there is really no way back.

According to the leaderboard in the pub, someone managed it in 45 seconds. I barely believe it and would like to have seen it. The guy would not have been able to feel his mouth afterwards.

For what it's worth I got through about two. The manager insisted I take home the champion's T-shirt but I felt somewhat ashamed to walk out with it.

What it contains: Eight bacon rashers, eight sausages, eight fried eggs, eight hash browns, eight black pudding, eight waffles, eight mini omelettes, eight slices of crusty bread or toast, mushrooms. bowl of beans, bowl of tomatoes, a cup of tea.

How long has it been running: Six months

How many have conquered it: 0 out of 30

Cost: £15, free if you complete it in an hour

I did a double take when the 8 It All breakfast emerged from the kitchen at Toll End Road Café.

Filled with horror, the prospect of what was in front of me suddenly started to become reality.

Brought out on a catering tray (!) this food challenge is colossus. I nervously laughed trying to mask my dread.

I arrived expecting to take on a giant 35-piece breakfast. Little did I know it had a big brother.

Gulping tea to lubricate my throat, I dived in with a sausage. Then a bit of bacon and then a hash brown.

With all eyes on me, my brow begins to sweat.

I piled a chunk of black pudding and mushroom on to slice of toast. It tasted good but even after 15 minutes you can hardly seen an inch of the tray.

I managed to gobble up half the sausages – they are my favourite after all. I ate one of the mini-omelettes and then few more chunks of black pudding, a potato waffle and a couple of eggs.

As the salt built up in my mouth, I hit the wall.

Thirty minutes had gone and I'd eaten more than the equivalent of a normal-sized breakfast but my effort looked pathetic.

I could see the disappointment on the faces of a small gathering who stayed to watch my efforts. I have a 10-minute break and decide to step back up to the plate.

The jacket came off and I load five rashers of bacon between two slices of bread. Big mistake.

What followed was the most painful bacon sandwich I have ever eaten – 20 minutes of my dessicate mouth stung with salt.

What it contains: A big steak, a pile of chips, half a dozen onion rings and a token salad

How long has it been running: Five years

How many have conquered it: 30 people, apparently

Cost: £19.99

A 50oz steak? No problem for a dedicated carnivore like me. Then the enormous piece of rare rump arrived at my table in The Cricketers Arms and the magnitude of the task in front of me became clear.

The two-inch thick chunk of meat lay sprawled across the centre of a giant plate surrounded by half a dozen onion rings, a pile of chips and a token salad. My confidence drained.

Having not eaten for four hours in preparation for the challenge, I started off quite well, attacking the steak with gusto and carving it up into smaller pieces, just as the experts suggest.

The idea is the smaller the pieces the easier it is to chew, reducing the chances of your jaw getting tired towards the later stages of the meal. I'd done my homework, but with around 20oz of the meat gone I started to feel the pinch. Each mouthful started to take an age to finish and the steak's consistency became rubber-like.

With my wife and the Star photographer looking on in disdain, I knew I was approaching 'the wall'.

As a failing athlete might reach for the steroids, I put my own contingency plan into action – Colman's English Mustard. Huge dollops of the stuff smeared across every morsel. It didn't work.

What it contains: Three twelve inch white wraps containing chicken, pork, beef, black beans, rice, guacamole, cheese, sour cream and lettuce.

How long has it been running: Five years

How many have conquered it: About five people have currently completed the challenge

Cost: £15

The Mission Burrito El Triple Challenge was something I thought I'd be able to conquer with ease. Oh, how wrong I was, and oh, how I waddled home.

I encountered two to three kilograms of pure meat, with everything else tripled in size and quantity for me to indulge in.

It was also for the onlookers and surrounding tables entertainment, of course at my expense.

Considering it was the triple challenge, I decided to go all out and have chicken, pork and beef.

They were mixed in with Mexican and black beans with plain rice, coriander and lime, lettuce, guacamole, cheese and sour cream.

One of the workers, Asta, advised me that when I started tasting a different meat, I should almost consider that 'progress', as she lined the meats up one by one, chomping through as I went.

I like to think I absolutely breezed through the first half; it all seemed a bit too easy.

I was absolutely starving and took down the first chicken third as quickly as it was placed on the table in front of me.

I do enjoy a good burrito and wasn't detererd by the mass of food I was expected to consume.

I was determined to conquer the challenge, as food left over, is food wasted in my eyes.

But approaching the final third of the burrito, I began to feel like I was going to throw up more than I was going to take in.

What it contains: Giant rack of BBQ ribs, pulled pork nacho sundae, onion rings, mixed grill burger, southern fried chicken skewer, corn on the cob, double portion of baked beans (the writer had mushrooms instead as he can't stand baked beans), triple chips.

How long has it been running: Since February 2014

How many have conquered it: Four people

Cost: £19.99

In the end it was the chips that did it.

I'd found my way past double mushrooms, onion rings, a chicken skewer, a mixed grill burger consisting of a gammon steak, a chicken fillet and a beefburger, a giant rack of BBQ ribs and a (frankly, delicious) pulled pork nacho sundae, but when all that was done, I still had most of a triple portion of chips to get through.

And because I'd tried to attack the meat and leave the stodge until last, what I actually did was leave myself with a huge mound of, by now, cold chips.

Not even Bear Grylls could have conquered that mountain.

Despite the massive crowd (my friend Emma, her two daughters and her sister) cheering me on, the realisation that I still had all those chips left to somehow accommodate, proved to be the moment I hit what marathon runners call The Wall. And it was a big wall. Made of chips.

So I failed the Trashcan Challenge, by two bites of burger, an ear of sweetcorn and about 100 chips.

In my defence, I would say that the photographer was nearly two hours late and so I'd made a probably fatal decision to enjoy a couple of pints before I got going, thus using up valuable stomach space. In the end, I was so full of meat and sides that I could feel them in my ears. I could literally hear pulled pork – and that's not a comfortable feeling.

My advice would be to get the stuff that needs to be taken hot – the chips, the ribs, the burger – down you first, and then start worrying about the vegetables later. Go straight for the chips and get them out the way.

What it contains: Four pounds of steak and kidney with vegetables and slow-cooked gravy served with a pastry lid and pastry horns

How long has it been running: Since the pub opened . . . a long time ago

How many have conquered it: Thousands over the years

Cost: £10.99

My dad completed it, my colleague Simon polished it off and even my mate Dan managed every last bite – and he's a bit of a beanpole.

I was therefore fairly confident when I strode into Mad O'Rourkes to take on the world famous Desperate Dan Cow Pie Challenge.

"It's only a pie," I said to myself. "What's there to be scared of?"

Well, quite a lot it turns out.

This is one hell of a meaty monster chock-a-block with half a cow, kidneys the size of fists and potatoes you could build a garden wall with.

The plus side is it's absolutely delicious. The gravy is thick and lip-smacking, the steak melt in the mouth and the pastry a crumbly, flaky fantasy.

The downside is it puts you into a meat coma – and the solid pastry horns are the work of the devil (I wouldn't be surprised if he has them on his pitchfork).

I lasted about 15 minutes before it dawned on me that the 4lb beast was a pie too far. Every time I thought I was making progress, I'd uncover another mountain of kidney or hidden depths of gravy.

If you're a big bloke, it won't be a problem.