Contest puts Big Apple on menu for big eaters

Can you eat more than 68 hotdogs in 10 minutes? If your appetite is strong enough to take on some of the biggest bellies in the business, you could get a chance to take a bite out of the Big Apple.

Nathan's Famous, a popular fast food chain set up in the United States in 1916, will hold a regional hotdog-eating contest at its Beijing restaurant on June 18. The top two or three will win an all-expenses-paid trip to New York to compete in the International Hotdog Eating Competition.

"We are looking for the Yao Ming of hotdog eating," said Kristen Lum, public relations director for the restaurant chain's Beijing branch. The final on July 4, which will be televised on ESPN, offers a first prize of $10,000 in cash.