Andrew Danto is crowned the winner of District Taco's taco-eating contest. (Photo: TBD Staff)

What began as a joke on Twitter came to a triumphant end for one competitive eater at District Taco last night. Well it was triumphant, but also pretty uncomfortable.

"I feel like I'm pregnant," says Andre Danto, 25, of Arlington, who ate 15 tacos in 15 minutes Monday night to take the title of "el rey del taco".

He pauses for what I'm desperately hoping will be a dry burp. "There's a lot of pain right now," he adds.

Video of the event after the jump.

It was Danto's first competitive eating event ever, and judging from his face afterward, possibly his last. "It's one off the bucket list," he says.

And it all started because District Taco owner Osiris Hoil binged on fish tacos one day, and then, as he is known to do with a lot of musings, told the world about it on Twitter.

"Every time I passed the kitchen, I said 'can I have two fish tacos?'" Hoil says. "At the end of the night, I said 'I think I must have eaten 16 or 17 tacos today,'" he says. "And I tweeted it. That's when it started. People started saying we should do a contest. And that's why we're doing it."

District Taco just expanded from a solely mobile, food cart operation into a regular restaurant in Arlington in November. Contestants and fans — along with plenty of customers caught in the crosshairs just trying to get some dinner — crowded the space Monday night.

Greg Maciog struggles with his last bite at the District Taco taco-eating contest. (Photo: TBD Staff)

While all the combatants came in with a strategy — Colin Van Dyke said he was going to try to eat as many as possible in the first five minutes, while Robin Castoldi planned to start out slowly, and "kick it up a notch" when she saw "how the rest of the competition was doing" — the contest came down to sheer force of will in its final moments.

Runner up Greg Maciog had a 15th taco in his mouth when the contest ended; if he had swallowed it, he would have tied Danto for the title. He had to concede, however, when he just couldn't do it. He had reached his limit, three bites short of having his picture forever memorialized on District Taco's wall.