Competitive Eater and Influencer Raina Huang Shares Her Colorado Favorites

Raina Huang eats a lot. The popular Los Angeles-based influencer with 332,000 followers on Instagram, 3.2 million on TikTok and a YouTube channel, is known for completing massive food challenges. She also has a hectic travel schedule that takes her everywhere from Miami to San Francisco and, recently, Colorado, where she ate her way through an impressive list of restaurants.

While she's a California girl at heart, Huang enjoyed her most recent visit to the state — despite the chilly weather she ran into when she headed to the mountains. "The people are great, and the food is amazing," she says of her experience in Colorado.

Last year, Huang made headlines following an incident at the now-closed StevO's Pizza and Ribs on Havana Street in Aurora, when the owner was caught on video kicking her out and calling her names when she showed up to take on the restaurant's 28-inch pizza challenge. StevO's posted its own side of the story on Facebook, but was inundated with one-star reviews following a tearful video of the aftermath that Huang posted (it has since been deleted).
This visit, though, was drama-free. Huang made the rounds at a long list of area restaurants, sharing highlights on social media from stops like Adobo, where she easily out-ate every opponent at a pancit (Filipino noodle dish) eating competition, downing six pounds in fifteen minutes; Tokio, where she put down a massive 5.5 pound bowl of ramen in under twenty minutes; and Banh & Butter Bakery Cafe, where she tried the extra-long banh mi.

Huang worked as a chef at a Benihana before discovering her niche "four or five years ago," she recalls, when some friends noticed that she had some impressive eating skills. Her first food challenge was a four-pound burrito. "I was able to finish in six minutes," she notes. So she kept looking for challenges, which led to becoming an influencer and, now, producing travel content as well.

"It's definitely not easy," she admits of eating large amounts of food in one sitting. "I just make it appear easy." Her most memorable challenge in Colorado so far was at Aunt Alice's Kitchen in Longmont, where she took on a six-pound burrito loaded with a dozen eggs, meat and potatoes smothered in green chile, sausage gravy and a whole lot of cheese. "I'm lactose-intolerant," Huang notes, so she had to take a Lactaid before digging in. "It was a mountain of cheese and gravy, but it was really good."

Huang's other stops in Colorado included Timberline Craft Kitchen & Cocktails in Silverthorne, Swaylo's Tiki in Longmont, Tasty Pot in Aurora, My Neighbor Felix and Whole Sol. She even drove four hours from Denver to Fruita to try Mike's Famous Chicken, after the restaurant tagged her frequently on Instagram. "They have a list of famous people on the wall that eat for free, a lot of sports people, and at the end of the list was my name," she recalls proudly.

There were two standouts, though. Huang loved the birria tacos at popular food truck Kiké's Red Tacos, which is planning to open a brick-and-mortar location soon. "It's the best birria in town," she says. And Huang is also a big fan of Ohana Grille, which has locations in Edgewater and Castle Rock. "I really love visiting Hawaii, and it has really good, authentic Hawaiian food," she concludes.