Kelantan man with monster appetite becomes video star

Nur Muhammad Izzat Osman taking on 10 types of burgers in one sitting. (Bernama pic)

KOTA BHARU: The name Nur Muhammad Izzat Osman may not sound familiar to most Malaysians but he has become a popular YouTube star for his food review videos known as “mukbang”.

Mukbang or meokbang is a Korean term for a live online broadcast in which the host eats a huge quantity of food in one sitting while interacting with the audience. Videos on such mega eaters have received wide audiences long before they became known in Malaysia.

Izzat has produced many such videos, including one which saw him wolfing down 10 burgers in one sitting, making him Malaysia’s very own mukbang star.

With more than 300,000 followers on YouTube, he is willing to spend hundreds of ringgit to buy food or drinks containing between 2,500 to 4,500 calories and his videos have been watched by more than a million viewers.

“Each week I will produce at least three videos on this food review while eating a large quantity of food.

“In my first video in August last year, I ate 10 cups of spicy ramen of various makes and gave my comments on the special quality of spicy noodles which is a craze among the young people now. Little did I know that I would be famous and be called the Malaysian mukbang,” he told Bernama here recently.

Izzat, 31, who is currently working as an exhibition booth designer here, is an avid runner, climber and cyclist, and will normally eat quite a large portion of food to feed his appetite after engaging himself in such activities.

“As I do not have a problem eating a large quantity of food, I was able to produce such videos regularly,” he said.

He said despite consuming so much, his health is still his top priority and he will continue being active in sports to burn up the calories.

“For example, I would do some physical and sports activities at night and continue to cycle to and from the office for 18 kilometres daily to keep myself fit,” he said.

He said he had produced more than 500 videos on his channel so far and had gone to South Korea, Indonesia and several neighbouring countries to record the videos of the people’s food there.

“Alhamdulillah, no company has protested the comments I made on their products and some even gave me good feedback for my efforts,” he said.

He has been contacted by fast-food companies, sushi outlets, dairy companies and street burger sellers.

The mukbang star said he had also received many invitations from restaurants all over the country to do a review on their food but had agreed to only a few selected ones.

In future, Izzat, who hails from Gerik, Perak, aims to record more creative mukbang videos, especially from other countries. - FMT