is there an option for the steal in the eating competition to go back to spamming a and b? or is it all combos now?
It's all combos now. The reason I changed it for more general use. If you use a controller, there are no inputs you can use sadly since it requires specifically the A and B key on the keyboard.
If you do find it too fast, the upcoming 1.8 update increases the timer again so it shouldn't be as difficult to complete.