Welcome, dear readers, to the 15th annual expedition of the Heavy Table Wrecking Crew to the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

As is our custom, our team of writers, illustrators, photographers, and videographers hit the ground running on Day 1 of the Minnesota State Fair in order to eat and drink our way voraciously across the landscape for your benefit.

Below you’ll find candid notes at least 74 different foods and drinks. We’ve compiled these without fear or favor, praising the delicious and thrifty and skewering the disgusting and overpriced.

If you’re a paying subscriber to the Heavy Table, cheers and thank you - your dues make this (increasingly) expensive tradition possible, and we hope that you’ll find our cheers and jeers make your own trips to the Fair a little more reliably delicious.

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If you’re not a paying subscriber, this post will open up for everyone to enjoy next week Wednesday, August 27.

A LITERARY NOTE FROM EDITOR JAMES NORTON

This year, in order to keep things spicy and fresh, some of us will be condemning bad Minnesota State Fair foods to various specific levels of hell. [1]

Dante’s Inferno, that remarkable work of spiritual exploration and historical fiction, provides an inspired template for the symbolic punishment of Fair foods that fall down on the job. It’s one thing to say that a corndog is bad; it’s another entirely to say that it has been condemned for eternity to the Fourth Circle of Hell for the cardinal sin of Greed.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate’!

IN TODAY’S EDITION

MEAT ME AT THE FAIR
By James Norton

Any event boasting a pork chop on a stick as its unofficial mascot has a certain responsibility to bring the thunder when it comes to meaty treats. And as per usual, the 2025 edition of the Fair brought some real champions, some mixed bags, and some total freakin’ washouts.

THE CHAMPS

Hula Kulua Pork | RC’s BBQ | $14

Over the years we’ve come to have a cautious - which is not to say downright cynical - relationship with Minnesota State Fair barbecue, including the stuff dished up by RC’s. It tends to be dry, it tends to be drowning in overly sweet sauce, and it tends to be an insult to the art form.

And then we get this year’s new dish from RC’s BBQ - a shockingly restrained slow-cooked pork collar caramelized with a Hawaiian-inspired barbecue sauce. Sweetness and salt were in balance, the meat was tender but not gelatinous or falling apart, and the overall dish was downright delicious - better than that, perhaps, if you tried it with the Japanese quick pickled-cucumbers on the side. This would be tasty barbecue in any setting, but at the Fair it’s lightning on a plate.

Uncrustaburger | Coasters | $14

A 4 oz. hamburger patty sandwiched between two deep-fried, grape jelly and peanut butter Uncrustables sandwiches?! They said it couldn’t be done. They said it SHOULDN’T be done. But, by God, they did it and we’re glad that they did.

It turns out that the overall package - the umami of the meat and peanut butter, the creaminess of the American cheese, the sweet gentle zing of the jelly - really holds together and makes sense when you take that first big, messy, fairly grotesque-looking bite. This is Minnesota State Fair food at its finest - ridiculous, overproduced, more than you could ever dare ask for, and, honestly, pretty delicious.

Freaky Fryday | Herbivorous Butcher | $19

In terms of sheer exertion-to-food, the Herbivorous Butcher Freaky Fryday takes the cake - it cost us $19 (nineteen dollars! for Fair food!) and took nearly 20 minutes due to some kind of fryer-related mishap.

But when this reasonably generous boat of vegan chicken-fried-bacon and bacon-fried-chicken (it’s a pretty good joke) arrived we were actually pretty happy. Despite the fact that we couldn’t tell the two nominally different fried vegan foods apart, they were uniformly crispy, nicely seasoned, extremely light in terms of texture and fairly substantial. A solid vegan entree, all things considered.

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
Spicy and crunchy
For a vegan dish, it’s good
Mileage may vary

MIDDLE OF THE PACK

Chicken Fried Bacon Fries | Soul Bowl | $12

The “beef bacon” in this dish could have benefited from being slightly less fried - the mild taste of the meat was overwhelmed by the aggressively seasoned batter. But when dipped into the accompanying passion fruit or brown sugar hot sauces, the fries came to life. Not a home run, but not a strikeout. A single? Ground rule double? The definition of a “middle of the pack” Fair food.

Bison Meatball Sub | Minnesota Farmers Union Coffee Shop | $17

I don’t know what the usually reliably good Farmers Union was going for with this so-called “sub,” and I am not sure that they knew either. Dry, overcooked, slightly gritty meatballs floated in a sea of dull, insubstantial gravy. Fried onions and a smear of sour cream were the right idea but didn’t save the dish. We didn’t hate this sandwich, but nor did we love it. And at $17, it really should bring prairie thunder to our Fair-ready palates.

Hereby condemned to: The First Circle of Hell (Limbo)

THE WASHOUTS

Timber Twists | Giggles | $13

How does “wet bacon” grab ya as a culinary selling point? What’s that? “Not great”?

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We agree: the sad, floppy bacon that defines these legitimately bizarre sausage-stuffed manicotti dippers is a bit of a culinary crime, and one that none of the dish’s other aspects redeemed or pardoned. They’re better with the tooth-blastingly sweet BBQ dipping sauce that comes on the side, but not by much.

I have to grudgingly concede that in terms of sheer calories per dollar there’s a decent value prospect to this dish - it weighs about a pound, and all of that is fat and/or fatty carbs and/or carbs - but that presupposes you can get past the pasty damp weirdness of it all.

Hereby condemned to: The Third Circle of Hell (Gluttony)

Smashadilla | Gass Station | $12

What the hell is even happening with this thing. It’s… a thin smooshed layer of beef, almost no perceptible cheese, and pale, wispy lettuce on the world’s saddest cafeteria-ready tortilla. Our version is above; the promo photo is below. We thought about condemning this for Fraud, but I think we’ll go with Heresy instead - there’s no way this mopey pancake represents either a smashburger or a quesadilla.

Hereby condemned to: The Sixth Circle of Hell (Heresy)

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
McDonald’s Snack Wrap
Has arrived at the State Fair
That’s my assessment

(UNOFFICIALLY) NEW
By Stacy Brooks

Let me let you in on a secret that savvy fairgoers have probably already clocked: the official new foods list is a PR construct. Plenty of existing vendors have creative new offerings that don’t make the cut, and there are several new vendors (who by definition are offering an entire slate of new items) that didn’t achieve the elusive recognition. Curious about these “new but not official new food” vendors, I reached out to them before the fair to learn more about their businesses, in addition to sampling their menu items on opening day.

BEANS & BEIGNETS

Location: Northwest corner of Judson Avenue and Clough Street

Menu: Beignets, iced and hot espresso and tea drinks, and coffee

Background: Beans & Beignets is a brick-and-mortar coffee shop in downtown Earlham, Iowa (about 20 miles west of Des Moines) founded by Nina Easley. She used to joke with her late husband about opening a coffee shop that served beignets made with his great-aunt’s recipe.

After he passed away, she made that dream a reality in 2021, eventually adding a food truck and partnering with her Mound, Minnesota-based brother, Ramon “Ra” Lorimor. “A lot of people, when you say beignets, they're sort of synonymous with Café du Monde,” Easley says. “Ours are a little bit different…Great-aunt Amy's recipe is much lighter.”

Tasting notes: As Easley noted, these beignets ($16 for six) are noticeably fluffier and airier than the traditional, chewier, Café du Monde-style beignet. Purists might quibble, but midway through a fried food-intensive day, the lighter texture hit the spot.

CHOCOLATE STRAWBERRY CUP

Location: Southwest corner of Dan Patch Avenue and Cooper Street

Menu: Four variations of fresh strawberries layered with toppings: Dubai (Belgian chocolate, pistachio butter, kataifi, and pistachios); Matcha White Chocolate (also includes marshmallow sauce); Chocolate; and Chocolate Strawberries & Cream

Background: San Antonio, Texas-based Chocolate Strawberry Cup owner Kelly Villarreal has been applying for the Minnesota State Fair since 2010—initially with her kettle corn stand, and then with her Dole Whip stand. Her latest venture was inspired by a visit to London’s Borough Market, where she spotted a vendor selling cups of strawberries drizzled with chocolate. “I thought we could do this and take it up a notch,” she says. “When we found out we got in [to the Minnesota State Fair] we were so excited, it felt like when you get engaged.”

Tasting notes: First things first: the Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Cup rings up at a whopping $20, and for that price, it would have to be absolutely mind-blowingly fantastic to be worth recommending. Unfortunately, the flavors fell short—the pistachio butter was devoid of pistachio flavor, and the quality of the chocolate was only a few notches above Hershey’s chocolate shell. The texture of the kataifi was nice, but since it wasn’t layered throughout the cup, it was gone after a few bites. It felt like it was designed (and priced) for affluent Instagrammers and TikTokers in search of aesthetically-pleasing content. The more basic chocolate strawberry cup is $12, which is likely a better value prospect.

GREATER TATER

Location: West side of Liggett Street between Carnes and Judson Avenues (outside the Horse Barn)

Menu: Five flavors of jumbo, deep-fried, stuffed tater tots: Bacon Jalapeño, Bacon Cheddar, Breakfast Skillet, Cheese Bomb, and Reuben, plus a choice of sauces (thousand island, blue cheese, Top the Tater, maple syrup, and ketchup)

Background: John and Sheryl Lecy started the locally-based Greater Tater food truck in 2024 as a way to help family friend David Kaetterhenry (who has Down syndrome) achieve his dream of operating a restaurant. “David’s the face of the trailer and he embraces this as his trailer and his business,” says John.

The jumbo-sized tots are produced by Shakopee-based Stonegate Foods, with Bacon Cheddar as the bestseller (John’s favorite is the Reuben and Kaetterhenry is a fan of the Cheese Bomb). The Lecys expect to go through 35 gallons of Top the Tater, one of their most popular dipping sauces, over the course of the fair. “We’re super proud to have a Minnesota product,” says Sheryl. “We love American-made and even better, Minnesota-made.”

Tasting notes: The Bacon Cheddar Tater Tots ($10) with Top the Tater are pure comfort in a cardboard boat. There’s nothing earth-shattering about these, but they get the job done, fried to perfection with a tasty balance of bacon, cheddar, and chive flavor notes. The tots are quite large (about four times the size of a standard tater tot), so by State Fair standards this is a decent value.

LUMPIA CITY

Location: North side of Judson Avenue between Liggett and Clough Streets

Menu: Pizza Lumpia (filled with mozzarella, pepperoni, Italian sausage, pizza sauce, and Italian herbs) and Ube Butter Banana French Toast Lumpia (filled with French toast strips soaked in ube butter syrup with caramelized bananas, dusted with powdered sugar)

Background: Lumpia City didn’t respond to my interview requests. According to their website, owners Alexa Reyes and Sam Klimaszewski started the business in San Diego, California in 2015, selling their Filipino-American fusion lumpia (fried spring rolls) at local farmers markets and breweries. They eventually relocated the business to Wisconsin, Klimaszewski’s home state. Currently, they distribute their frozen lumpia at dozens of grocery stores in Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as operating a brick-and-mortar location and food truck.

Tasting notes: Lumpia City knows their way around a fryer—thanks to the light, delicate texture, this was one of the best deep-fried offerings I ate all day. The Pizza Lumpia ($12), with a slightly sweetened pizza sauce and plenty of gooey mozzarella, reminded me of a pizza roll, but with a much better wrapper. Unfortunately, the Ube Butter Banana French Toast Lumpia ($12) were a miss, with flavors that muddled together in a soggy, overly sweetened filling.

MAGDALENA’S CHIMNEY CAKES

Location: North side of Judson Avenue between Clough and Nelson Streets

Menu: Chimney cakes spread with caramel or Nutella, filled with vanilla ice cream, and topped with crushed Oreos or rainbow sprinkles

Background: When she started North Carolina-based Magdalena’s Chimney Cakes in 2017, Viviane Robinson was carrying on a family tradition. Her grandmother Magdalena operated a chimney cake stand in the Budapest area, and Robinson grew up helping out during summer trips to Hungary. She explains that chimney cakes are a popular street food in Hungary, and are made by wrapping a yeasted dough around a wooden dowel and baking it in a rotisserie oven. “The outside gets caramelized and the inside is soft and fluffy like a doughnut,” she says. Traditionally, they’re cylindrical, but the cone shape allows it to be filled with ice cream. “It's a little bit tailored to our American palates,” she says.

Tasting notes: I opted to try the combo Robinson flagged as her top-seller: Nutella and Oreo ($15). The chimney cake itself was the highlight, with a unique texture that reminded me a bit of a pretzel, but with a loftier interior. Unfortunately, the enormous scoop of Kemps-grade vanilla ice cream detracted from the chimney cake—there was just so much to eat through before getting to the good part. I would have appreciated a much smaller scoop of ice cream and a slightly lower price tag.

URBAN GLOW MOCKTAILS

Location: North End, northwest section, across from the North End Event Center

Menu: Seven craft mocktails—Dirty NoTini, Nojito, CosNo, Grilled Peach No Fashioned, Autumn Mule, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and Bonspiel Blue—plus nitro cold brew and Cheweenies (mini Kramarczuk’s hot dogs in Hawaiian sweet rolls with mocktail-inspired mustards)

Background: Urban Growler Brewing Company founders Jill Pavlak and Deb Loch have been rehearsing for the fair for 11 years, from distributing their beer to various fair vendors to brewing Kind of a Big Dill pickle lemonade for Nordic Waffle. Their latest venture builds on the non-alcoholic beverages offered at their taproom, with creative mocktails ranging from a Dirty NoTini flavored with dill pickling spices and olive brine to a Pineapple Upside Down Cake slushie. “We have no shortage of ideas,” says Loch with a chuckle, noting that they wanted to offer a breadth of flavors and visually-appealing colors. Their food item, the Cheweenie (“a bite-sized mini hotdog but sexier,” says Pavlak) is intended to complement the flavors of the mocktails with various flavored mustards including pineapple, grilled peach, and lemon dill. “This is like we’re starting our business all over again!” Loch says. “It’s crazy—crazy exciting,” adds Pavlak.

Tasting notes: The Grilled Peach No Fashioned ($8) was my favorite sip of the day, with a rich peach flavor deepened with a hint of smoke. I had it towards the beginning of our taste-a-thon, but I think it would really shine as a midday palate cleanser. Bonus points for the classy peach and cherry garnish. The Pineapple Upside Down Cake slushie ($8) skewed sweeter, with prominent pineapple and maraschino cherry notes. However, it didn’t verge into saccharine territory—this is kid-friendly but will also appeal to adults with a sweet tooth. Don’t overlook the Cheweenies ($8). The wonderfully snappy Kramarczuk’s sausages contrast nicely with the soft rolls, and the price is right. I preferred the punchy, herb-forward lemon dill mustard to the understanded grilled peach mustard, but both were a nice pairing for the sausages.

WORLD FARE
By Amy Rea

Do we really need an International Bazaar anymore? Isn't that anachronistic? It's something to ponder as more and more seriously delicious food enters reality for Minnesota diners. Why pigeonhole it to one corner of the Fair?

OK, logistics, I get it. The Bazaar is already there. Even if it does include Shanghai Henri's (which surprised us this year with its lack of suckitude). And some of the best foods we had this year came from that corner.

Afro Bean Pops | Afro Deli | $8

Alas. This wasn't one of the stars of international food for us this year. The accompanying basbaas sauce was zippy and full of heat, but the bean pops were bland and dry. At the very least, something like cilantro would have been welcome.

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
A smart container
The balls with the sauce nearby
Decent offering

Baba's | Fawaffle | $11

Baba's, however, nailed it. The falafel waffle served with pesto, basil, and tomato was attractive to look at and even better to eat. And, as far as Fair prices go, it fell into the category of "Fair reasonable" meaning that it could be shared, and the quality was worth it.

El Burrito Mercado | Flauta Dippers | $15

These were a hit. Not least of which because they were thoughtfully packaged in a cup with the sauce at the base, allowing the flauta itself to largely stay crisp, and making it easy to swirl the flauta in the sauce and cotija, and then munch to your heart's content. More of this, please.

Union Hmong Kitchen | Shrimp & Pork Toast on a Stick | $16

After last year's disastrous rice brick, we were delighted to have this classic shrimp and pork toast, crunchy, flavorful, and while it didn't need to be on a stick–heck, why not?

Holy Land | Tandoor Chicken Quesaratha | $15

Most, but not all, of us thought this combination of tandoori chicken, cheese, and paratha bread was delicious and a great example of combining cuisines for maximum flavor. But some found it a bit bland and didn't love the cheese.

Lumpia City | Ube Butter Banana French Toast Lumpia | $12

Oh dear. No. It was not attractive to look at, nor delightful to eat. We appreciate the wish to move lumpia into a fusion category, but in this case, we would have preferred to have a traditional lumpia rather than this overly sweet, gooey rendition.

Lumpia City | Pizza Lumpia | $12

This worked better than the French toast version, with the crispy lumpia roll acting as a crust for a decent filling. Still, if you want a cross of food items that includes pizza, the cheese curd taco folks nailed it.

Midtown Global Market’s Oasis Grill & Hoyo Sambusa | Somali Street Fries | $12

Let's get these going on every street corner, not least of which because the value proposition is so amazing: For $12, you get an enormous portion of crispy fries with beef suqaar, white garlic sauce, and green jalapeno sauce. Crispy, chewy, creamy, overflowing with flavor, and easy to share.

Midtown Global Market’s Oasis Grill & Hoyo Sambusa | Sambusa Cone | $12

This wins the prize for best-thought-out packaging. A cardboard cone for the sambusa that comes with a little pocket for the sauce…? Genius. The sambusas themselves were executed decently, but some of our team liked them more than others, as some found them bland.

NEW DRINKS AT THE FAIR 2025
By John Garland

Here’s the sad report, readers: the state of new beverages this year is bleak.

We pared down the sixty-some new drinks on the State Fair’s official list to a tight two dozen, because the list is choked with multiple iterations on similar ideas made by the same producers.

Lift Bridge Brewing made 15 of the new drinks (including four tropical fruit slushies for four different vendors — we’ll take a pass on all of them). Pryes Brewing made seven drinks, Sociable Cider Werks and Indeed Brewing both had four. It seems like we’ve entered a new era for State Fair beverages — only the local breweries doing huge volumes need apply.

The best place to get local beer at the Fair remains the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild at the Agriculture-Horticulture building. Get a flight of the best craft beers in the state and then stand in line to see the crop art.

The rest of the new drinks are a more tenuous proposition. Abandon hope, all ye who seltzer.

GET IT!

Strawberry Rhubarb Runway | The Hangar | Pryes Brewing Co. | $7/12oz

Excellent from start to finish. Inviting rhubarb aroma, tart strawberries lead the sip, followed by astringent rhubarb and the sharpness of the sour beer. It’s balanced, not sweet at all, with a flavor that develops the longer it sits. Fabulous!

Sgt. Pepper Slushie | Coasters | Lift Bridge Brewing | $12/16oz

Here is some truth in advertising. It tastes exactly like Dr. Pepper, robust and pronounced, not too sweet, with a crisp, vanilla-flecked finish. No drink at the Fair fulfilled its brief as well as this one.

Cherry Apple Pie Cider | The Blue Barn | Wild State Cider | $9.50/12oz

This one screams ripe fruit from the rooftops. It’s packed with stewed cherry flavor, balanced and slightly effervescent. Focused, clean, well executed. A triumph of simplicity.

Irish Sticky Toffee Pudding | O’Gara’s At The Fair | Pryes Brewing Co. | $8/12oz

This is just a good stout. There’s nothing really “sticky toffee pudding” about it, so a few points off for missing the target. Otherwise, it’s rich, deep, roasty, and smooth, just like all the stouts that Pryes makes. No qualms here!

CONSIDER IT!

Churro Cream Ale | Tejas Express (The Garden) | Headflyer Brewing | $8/12oz

It looks lovely dusted with cinnamon, but it’s not sweet (certainly not like the Mini Donut Beer lives up to its pastry namesake). That said, it’s a solid cream ale. The spice adds to the malty structure, and the whole package has a toasty profile reminiscent of Vienna Lager. Not a churro, but not bad at all. (Pictured: top of section.)

Blueberry Lemon Cream Ale | The Frontier | Fulton Brewing | $7/12oz

This isn’t like the hothouse berries you get at the megamart. Think wild blueberries, tart and brambly, made extra astringent by a big dose of pithy lemon. Fulton has done well here to brew a fruit beer that’s full of fruit flavor — but one that isn’t sweet.

Liquid Superdelic | Ball Park Cafe | Modist Brewing | $8/12oz

Double dry-hopped beers are going the way of the dodo, but Modist flexes the style’s best attributes here. A hazy wheat beer body with a tannic finish and just enough pineapple to keep it balanced. It’s dry — more like tepache than ripe pineapple juice — but that’s what makes it good.

Mexican Fruit Cup | Ball Park Cafe | Pryes Brewing Co. | $7/12oz

When the Tajin rim starts falling into this beer, there’s a nice salty/sweet thing happening here. A great color, fruity aroma, juicy body with just enough zesty lime to stop it from being a full-on fruit punch.

Apple Cider Pumpkin Spice | Shanghai Henri’s | Duluth Cider | $7/12oz

Surprisingly little pumpkin flavor, but it has a sweet apple aroma and tastes like a nice fall cider. There’s no distinguishing second flavor, apart from a little cinnamon. But the ciders in our taste test did much worse things than being indistinct, so cheers to that.

Peach Dipped Pale Ale | Lulu’s Public House | Indeed Brewing | $7/12oz

It depends on whether you want to drink a fruit beer or a beer with fruit in it. This is the latter — the hop character won’t let you forget it’s a pale ale, but it melds nicely into the stone fruit. Astringent, like licking peach skins.

THINGS ARE GETTING DICEY HERE!

THE STINGER! | The Hideaway Speakeasy | Cannon River Winery | $10/16oz

It scores huge novelty points for its garnish — a lollipop containing a tiny scorpion — but otherwise, it’s a perfunctory flavored margarita with a tiny waft of habanero on the finish.

Caramel Corn Cream Ale | Coasters | Lift Bridge Brewing | $7/12oz

I’m not sure whether the beer was brewed with flaked maize, but it had a distinct corniness about it. Not much caramel flavor. Not much flavor at all.

Hurricane | Andy’s Grille | Big Wood Brewing | $9/16oz

It tastes solely of orange and pineapple juice, with no alcohol burn and zero complexity. I thought for sure it would reek of grenadine, but that flavor is shockingly absent. It’s just juicy juice. I would have loved this drink in my 20s.

Frozen Espresso Martini Hard Seltzer | Cafe Caribe | Lift Bridge Brewing | $12/16oz

I admire a big swing at the cocktail of the moment, but the execution here is not quite right. It separated quickly in the heat, devolving into diesel coffee surrounded by water and slush. The coffee flavor isn’t bad, but maybe just have an actual coffee instead?

Strawberry Blaze | Giggle’s Campfire Grill | Millstream Brewing | $6.50/12oz

Blaze? Hardly. This smells far more like jalapeno than it tastes. No berry sweetness. No heat. No point? The description advertised “bright flavors” and did not deliver. It’s just a blonde ale with a Tajin rim and not much else to its credit.

Scooby Slush | Chicago Dogs (The Garden) | Lift Bridge Brewing | $11/16oz

Described with a fruit basket full of adjectives, this slushie is just banana and coconut, and not the type of coconut that tastes like it came from a coconut. The longer it sits, it takes on a sunscreen aspect, and the banana can’t lift the flavor out of the drek. Drink it fast!

BANISHED TO HELL!

The Seltzer Flight | Dino’s Gyros | Lift Bridge Brewing | $15

All three of these seltzers should have never left the drawing board. The ouzo flavor in the Greek Goddess is bitter enough to make Circe shudder. The Lil’ Sour Buddies tastes like artificial blue raspberry and, importantly, isn’t sour. The Pickerita is proof that maybe pickles don’t need to be in everything at the State Fair. [Banished to the first circle for having no idea what it’s doing.]

Backyard Bloody Mary | The Blue Barn | Freehouse Brewery | $12.50/12oz

It tastes of nothing more than tomato juice, watered down and sprinkled with lemon juice. Not a trace of alcohol detected, a faintly peppery finish, and a washed-out nothingness in the middle. Incomprehensibly bland and especially terrible for its premium price. [Banished to the first circle for being soulless and lost.]

Blackberry Bramble | West End Brews | Schell’s + Tattersall | $12/12oz

It sports a moody, ethereal purple shade, and that’s where the intrigue ends. Medicinal. Bitter. No “juicy blackberries” like the description notes, just a paper-thin body surrounded by haunting ethanol vapors. [Banished to the first circle for having a great pedigree with bad follow-through.]

Pink Prickly Pear Agave Altitude | The Hangar | Sociable Cider Werks | $7/12oz

Prickly pear is never a good idea in a beverage. It’s a color more than a flavor, and its pink hue did little to buoy this cider. Imbalanced, with the taste of hard candy you lost in your purse for three years, and a bitter finish. [Banished to the second circle for looking good and tasting awful.]

Brianna Pineapple Wine Slushie | MN Wine Country | Parley Lake Winery | $13/8oz

Brianna is not a good wine grape, and I don’t understand why local growers still foist it on us. The pineapple juice nearly smothers that funky Muscat taste, but not enough. The finish is noxious and sickly, like benzene. [Banished to the fourth circle for its horrible value prospect.]

Shamrock Slushie | O’Gara’s At The Fair | Lift Bridge Brewing Co. | $11/12oz

Drowning in mint extract flavor, this mouthwashy abomination has no place in polite company. Even fans of McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes wouldn’t necessarily enjoy its fulsome spearmint onslaught. I’ve had menthol cigarettes that tasted cleaner and fresher. [Banished to the fifth circle for being an offront to common decency.]

IT TAKES TWO. OR DOES IT?
By Jeanne Lakso

A love for peanut butter and pickle sandwiches and the willingness to try just about anything prompted me to assemble a list of new Fair foods and one beverage that bring together disparate items, flavors, or categories of consumables into something (we hope) entirely new. Do they make sweet synergy, or are they just a sin against good tasting food? Complementary or contradictory? Just a food stunt (looking at you, crispy lutefisk steam bun from a couple years back) or truly stunning? Are they well worth your spend or should you walk away, cash in hand? After a five-mile trek through the Fair with my compatriots, here are my findings, divided into three categories.

WINNING COMBOS

Tandoori Chicken Quesaratha | Holy Land

Like Baba's, Holy Land's track record of making delicious food that's already in their wheelhouse Fair-worthy is quite good. Using tandoori chicken and paratha to fill a quesadilla made from a paratha is a sound idea. Going in, I expected this to rise or fall on the strength of the tandoori chicken, which should be flame-kissed, flavorful, and most important, not dry. The paratha seemed like a good choice for holding the fillings. And the "quesa" part of the name implied the presence of cheese...but what kind?

This turned out to be one of the best bites of the day. The tandoori chicken has enough spices, including jalapeños and green chilis, to be one of the few genuinely hot dishes of the day, a notch and a half above Minnesota hot. There's a combination of mozzarella and Monterey Jack cheeses in the quesaratha. The paratha bread is grilled to crisp, and Holy Land's green sauce of avocado, cilantro, and lime adds another layer of flavor. Once you adjust your price scale to State Fair dollars, it even looks like a good deal at $15.

Pizza Cheese Curd Tacos | Richie’s

Let me tell you about Richie's Pizza Cheese Curd Tacos. Richie's has carved out a consistently good space for themselves near the animal barns by reliably taking simple ingredients, a beloved format (tacos), and some culinary creativity, and putting out some of my favorite once-a-year indulgences. This year's taco twist was sure to be another hit.

Combining "everybody's favorite foods" turns out to be a great idea. Greater than the sum of its parts, even. If you like to eat your pizza folded in half, how awesome would it be to have that be crust deep-fried? Richie's did that for you. If you admire a nice meaty, cheesy taco, what about filling it with a deconstructed pizza? Richie’s loads this taco up with mozzarella curds and marinara sauce, chopped pepperoni, and a generous portion of Italian sausage inside a crunchy shell. Two tacos for $15. Don't tell my cardiologist how much I loved these.

Soft Serve Royal Raspberry Beer | Lulu’s Public House

It's soft serve magically made from beer, served in a cake cone. And it's dairy-free. A sense of doom crept in for just a few minutes when I first read about this purported sleeper hit. Then I saw that it was from Pryes. It could work, offering one of those rare and disorienting taste experiences when the texture and flavor are both utterly familiar but so very strangely presented that it's really fun.

Gentle reader, I'm on the beer soft-serve train. Cold, creamy, not too sweet, it was the perfect palate cleanser after four hours of Fair food. It's definitely a fruit beer, but lickable; weird in a really fun, accessible way. The only thing that might have improved the experience was ditching the cone and putting a large dollop of the soft serve in a glass of raspberry beer. Cheers to you, Lulu's Public House. Thanks for the beer, Pryes.

NICE TRY

Fawaffle | Baba’s Hummus Hous

Savory waffles are great. Baba's Hummus House has a track record of well-presented new foods that reinvent (or at least, re-present) Mediterranean staples that are in Baba's sweet spot. Expectations were high going in for this savory waffle/falafel hybrid, served with hummus and tahini sauces. For the most part, Baba's Fawaffle did not disappoint. Each bite is packed with garlic, the hummus and tahini toppings are classic and generously applied, as are the very welcome halved cherry tomatoes, which are especially refreshing with the savory falafel waffle.

It could just be a first-day thing, but I wanted the waffle to be much crisper. As it stands, it bows underneath the weight of the sauces and a couple of cherry tomatoes. For $11, though, it's a nice appetizer for three or four fairgoers or a bigger snack for one.

Pimento Cheese Puffs | Shanghai Henry’s

I love a cheese puff. I love pimento cheese. I have developed a deep distrust of pretty much anything coming out of Shanghai Henry's, especially after that lutefisk steamed bun debacle. So this was anybody's guess. The Heavy Table Wrecking Crew was fairly well gobsmacked that these were as tasty as they were. One commented that the raspberry jam-like dipping sauce wasn't bringing much to the party. However, the pimento cheese filling was decent, neither too salty nor too bland. My Texas mother-in-law wouldn't have crossed the street for it; still, the fried dough was crispy and not greasy. If Shanghai Henry's was my neighbor's four year-old child and this was their crayon drawing, I'd hang it on my fridge, at least for a week or so. Again, with the continued upward price creep of Fair food, $12 for five puffs seemed okay.

Hot Honey Jalapeño Popper Donut | Fluffy’s Handcut Donuts

This one's a wild card: raised donut, jalapeño cream cheese, bacon crumbles, and hot honey. Will it be too much? Or too good to resist? Fluffy’s Donuts is pretty great with the sweet stuff, so I was anxious see how they do with a sweet and savory combo. Is it the best parts of a jalapeño popper married to the nicest donut?

Not really. For $10, though, it's not terrible. The slices of pickled peppers cut sweetness of the donut and the (not at all spicy) jalapeño cream cheese frosting. The salty bacon crumbles are a good idea, but at least on the first day of the Fair, were damp, slightly greasy crumbs instead of crumbles. If you've got an adventurous twelve year-old who wants to try one, it's only $10 (did I really say "only" about a ten-buck donut?).

WALK AWAY

Caprese Curds | Lulu’s Public House

People love cheese curds. Some people love a Caprese salad, especially when tomatoes are ripe and ready for picking, the basil is at its peak, and the mozzarella is fresh and sweet. Can Lulu's Public House manage to combine the two and capture the best of both? Hot, gooey fried cheese AND a summer salad classic? How would the temperature clash of hot curds and fresh herbs work? Why match curds, aFair food icon, with an ultra-seasonal salad in the first place?

I'm pretty sure none of those questions occurred to the creators of Caprese Curds. Twelve bucks gets you a basket of just-okay mozzarella curds dredged in Italian seasoning-flavored crumbs and fried. Underneath there are some unappealing chopped tomatoes in that pinkish hue that signals "no flavor here." Some flecks of fresh basil make an appearance as well, but the most prominent element besides the cheese is a half-dozen dry slices of crusty bread that had no purpose except to mimic a caprese sandwich. Over the whole thing was thick and sweet "balsamic drizzle." If you're Italian or have ever been to Capri, walk away. If you're on a mission to try every single variety of cheese curd on offer at the Fair, be my guest. It'll cost you $12, which seems to be the base price of a whole lot of things this year, but seems too much for this disappointment.

Smashadilla | Gass Station Grill

Did the folks at Gass Station Grill and Holy Land have a summit in order to divide up the quesadilla concept and name into its component phonemes? Is eating a smashburger patty in a tortilla as fun as it is to say "smashadilla?"

Short answer: no. This is not a particularly attractive item nor is the flavor anything memorable. The most prominent elements are a pair of gigantic hamburger dill pickle slices, topped with a generous drizz of dressing that was maybe Russian. The meat patty was indeed smashed and there was some cheese underneath it. That's all I have to say about the fillings. The real problem for me was where was the second tortilla? Is it even a quesadilla without two? What would an additional (uninspired) flour tortilla have added to the cost? One of our crew took a look and declared it "drunk food." That would possibly explain a quesadilla with only one tortilla. I wanted to taco fold the thing in order to make it easier to hold and eat but the meat patty prevented taco-ization. I might have enjoyed it more if I had been just a little bit drunk and if it came with fries. I wouldn't really call it a value at $12, but neither did it seem like a scandalous case of over-pricing. Still, skip it.

THE CAFFEINE BUZZ
By Amy Rea

Let's be honest: The Fair takes energy. Lots of it. Sure, there's plenty of beer to slow you down if you need it, but to make a full day, you may just need a shot (or two, or more) of caffeine to keep you going. There are several options including coffee drinks and tea–but they definitely aren't created equally. We found the full gamut from glorious to–well, to be polite, not glorious. Worse, some of the most egregious drinks came from places that we would have expected better from.

Minnesota Maple Shake-Up | Hamline Dining Hall | $8

Maple? We'd have liked that. But what we got was cinnamon. A lot of cinnamon. So much cinnamon that even the biggest advocates for cinnamon coffee were unhappy. Worse, as the drink set in the reasonable temps of opening day, it seemed to curdle a bit. Pass.

Maple Cream Nitro Cold Press | Minnesota Farmers Union | $8.50

C'mon now. Maple and coffee are actually a great pairing, but not as we found them at the Fair. Unlike the maple drink at the Hamline Dining Hall, this was just sweet. Too sweet. Maple makes a nice note, not an entire symphony.

Cold Brew Lavender Shandy | Anchor Coffee House | $8

In spite of the Fair's website listing this as a drink from Anchor Coffee House, the staff was unprepared when we asked for this. They finally conceded they had some lavender syrup and made a drink with it. But the drink was hands-down the worst coffee drink we had; the lavender was so heavy-handed as to be undrinkable, and the word "manure" may have come up while we discussed it.

Bonspiel Blue Mocktail | Urban Glow Mocktails | $8This may have been the prettiest drink we had, a light, pretty blue color with a citrus slice garnished with what appeared to be gold leaf that shattered into sprinkles in the drink. Sadly, while refreshing, it was also a bit on the bland side and could have used more zip.

Cold Brew Stinger | Beans & Beignets

It was–fine. Smooth, not offensive, not very spicy, but not exciting.

Iced Coffee with Ube Milk Foam | Chan’s Eatery | $13

This enormous drink was certainly lovely to look at, but at $13, the question is: Why? Why do you need a drink of this size? And the answer is, you probably don't. If you got a sip that combined coffee with the ube milk foam, you had a pleasant coffee with a touch of sweetness, but a smaller (and cheaper) version would be welcome.

Loon Lake | Dill Pickle Iced Tea | $7

Stunt food? Sure. But also an example where sometimes a stunt food is more than its stuntiness. The glass had a bit of heat in the spices rimming it, which were a nice offset to the somewhat (but not overpowering) brininess of the drink. It was milder than expected, and actually pretty refreshing on a warm day.

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
Didn’t hate this one
Everything has a pickle
Pair with some pizza

Popping Boba Tea | Katie’s Sweet Tea | $12 (but refills could be had starting at $5)

Can't argue about the portion size for the price, especially given the reduced-price refills, but we can argue that something that offers green tea mixed with mango could have more flavor than this did. Another option is to have the tea replaced with lemonade, which might be better, although caffeine-free.

Somali Spiced Tea | Afro Deli | $8

We saved the best for last. Of all the caffeine drinks we tried, this was the clear winner. The chai flavors sang, and everyone wanted another taste. Skip the fancy maple/lavender drinks and pick up a cup of this to start (or continue, or end) your day at the Fair.

THE SWEET STUFF
By James Norton

The Minnesota State Fair is nothing if not a festival of desserts. A great dessert will motivate the masses, and a bad one will inspire real fury - it’s a high-wire act that is irresistible to vendors. Here are our assessments of the new flavors, ranging from the sublime to the astoundingly, audaciously bad.

LAST COURSE, FIRST PLACE

Sweet Squeakers | Blue Barn | $14.25

Chalk this up as one of the biggest surprises of any of our Fair visits ever. This mix of warm funnel cake-fried cheese curds, high-grade lemon whipped heavy cream, and berry sauce is a perfect balance of sweet, savory, warm, cool, citrus, and dairy. This feels like a dish that could have easily gone wrong in a half dozen ways, but it doesn’t - it’s absolutely lovely, surprisingly sophisticated, and a legitimate triumph.

Watermelon Slushie | Midtown Global Market and Hoyo Sambusa | $6

Well this is just a ding-dang delight of a sweet Fair treat, bursting as it is with light, refreshing, fruit-forward flavor and the cooling properties of finely shaved ice. Reasonably priced, delightfully designed, a pleasure to meet and spend time with.

Affogato Sundae | Blue Moon Dine-In Theater | $10

While not on the official New Foods list, this sundae called to us with its sultry mix of frozen fudge, warm espresso sauce, and a biscotti for dipping (actually a ladyfinger, but whatever.) And ultimately: a total triumph. A little sweet for some of our tasters, but everyone agreed that the fudge-meets-coffee union of ice cream and topping was a real success, and the (relatively) modest price tag makes it a solid value.

Sara’s Tipsy Pies | Cinna-Sugar Crust Tidbits | $10

Who says “unambitious” is a bad thing? This dessert is nothing more than crispy strips of cinnamon sugar-coated pie crust available for dipping in a whiskey-flavored caramel dipping sauce. But it works! The crusts are crispy and pleasantly flavored, the caramel dipping sauce has some depth and interest, and the two combine in a compelling way.

Cherry Bigfoot Limeade Float | Tasti Whip | $12

While it’s arguable that no soft serve-based float should ever cost north of $10, if you’re going to shell out for one, this is the one to get. The cherry and lime flavors are cranked up to absurd levels here and the drink is cooling, tasty, and thoroughly entertaining.

Croffle Cloud | Spinning Wylde | $12

Surely a waffle-ironed croissant topped with banana cream and a cloud of bespoke cotton candy must rank among the twee-ist and silliest foods available at the State Fair, which has no lack of twee and silly foods. But, despite the fact that the cloud had dwindled to about 1/4th its grandeur due to the humidity in its trip from the stand to our table, there was a lot to like about this dish - flat or not, the croissant was buttery and layered, and the banana cream was joyous without being oversweet. A weird but effective dessert.

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
The croissant is flat
How they massacred my boy
Irrelevant cloud

Triple Chocolate Mini-Donuts | Solem’s MiniDonuts | $12

One of the best things about these chocolate doughnuts with chocolate icing and chocolate chips is that they’re really, really, really not trying to be anything that they aren’t. The chocolate is fine quality (not great, not terrible) and there’s a hell of a lot of it. The doughnuts, when we tried them, were warm and tender and the overall chocolate-on-chocolate-on-chocolate effect was legitimately pleasant. As adults, we’d give these a thumbs up. If you’ve got fairgoers in the 5-to-15-year-old range, a bucket of these seems likely to be an instant win.

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
Light and airy cake
Can’t really say too much more
Chocolate donut, yum!

A MIXED BAG

Beignets | Beans and Beignets | $16

Aggressively priced at $16 for 6 and somewhat underfried, these beignets aren’t the best we’ve had of their kind. (Those would be the ones we tried at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, the Mecca for this particular type of fried dough.) But! They’re really not too bad - the flavor is right, there’s a pleasant fluffy chewiness to them, and the application of powdered sugar is assertive but not excessive. A little harder fry and they’d be most of the way there. As is: Really quite pleasant.

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
Bigger than you’d think
I’ve had the real deal down South
I’d say it’s worth it

Banana S’More | Minnesota Farmers Union | $9

Expectations were high for this $9 pastry from the vaunted Patisserie 46 of Minneapolis and… well, reactions were mixed but trending positive. There was a real coffee cake-meets-s’mores-meets banana muffin thing going on with this dense, attractive-looking pastry, and it does in fact provide a pretty good hunk of tastiness for your dollar. We would’ve tried its companion pastry, the Apple Glaze, but it was sold out by 11am on Thursday morning. (Friend of the newsletter Brandi Brown informed us that the Apple Glaze was ridiculously dry.)

Hot Honey Jalapeño Popper Donut | Fluffy’s Handcut Doughnuts | $10

I sincerely hope that when the history of the fall of the American republic is written, this ten dollar doughnut gets a footnote. It’s kind of everything stupid and broken about our country: An oversweet doughnut dotted with bacon and pickled jalapeños. But also like our country: It sort of works if you don’t think about it too hard. The doughnut is oversweet, sure, but the pickled heat of the peppers and the crunchy saltiness of the bacon give your palate other things to think about. There’s a balance here. Deranged, perhaps, but balanced.

Grandma Doreen’s Dessert Dog | West End Creamery | $14.25

This is one of those dishes where you need to consult the officially published description before you can describe what it actually is. Here’s what it’s supposed to be: “Vanilla ice cream, created by Minnesota Dairy Lab, sandwiched between two pieces of Grandma Doreen's Coffee Cake – a family recipe from Elgin, Minn. – made by Wrecktangle Pizza. Skewered on-a-stick and drizzled with house-made strawberry rhubarb jam. Garnished with cinnamon toast-flavored crispy treats, whipped cream and sprinkles. (Vegetarian).”

Here’s what we got: Some tasty but claggy coffee cake drooping as it became swamped by melting vanilla ice cream. The jam was mostly missing in action, and as was the case with most of the toppings on this trip, the toppings seemed either superfluous or absent. Not the worst, but certainly not the best, either.

Hereby condemned to: The First Circle of Hell (Limbo)

Green Apple Sucker Ice Cream | Granny’s Apples and Lemonade | $8

If you love tiny scoops of ice cream that taste like a melted down dime store apple lollipop but cost eight dollars, this is going to be exactly your jam. A profound rip-off.

Hereby condemned to: The Fourth Circle of Hell (Greed)

Birthday Cookie Dough on a Stick | Kora and Mila’s Cookie Dough | $10

I hate to directly dispute the contextual bonus haiku that follows this review, but I found this gritty lump of sugar covered with disgusting white chocolate and pointless sprinkles to be very much less than satisfying. Yes, it looks good - it’s striking, it’s colorful, it has a pleasant heft. But while you can’t demand anything too sophisticated from something selling itself as “birthday cookie dough,” this falls short of even tempered expectations, particularly at $10. I guess the good news is that it’s so aggressively sweet that a little goes a long way.

Hereby condemned to: The Second Circle of Hell (Lust)

Bonus haiku from Josh Feist:
Oh my! It is sweet!
But it is satisfying
Chug water after

THE PART OF THE LIST WHERE I STARTED TO GET TRULY ANGRY

Cannoli Gelato Nachos | Mancini’s | $11

This is the part of the list where I started to get angry. There’s a lot to love about Mancini’s as a great Saint Paul dining institution, but this dessert is legitimately broken. $11 for a small handful of crunchy cinnamon chips that you can dip into “cannoli flavored” gelato? Hard pass. Incredibly frustrating.

Hereby condemned to: The Fourth Circle of Hell (Greed)

Minnesota State Fair website (l) / James Norton / Heavy Table (r)

Land of 10,000 Cakes | Bridgeman’s | $14

As bad as the cannoli nachos were, this Bridgeman’s offering is roughly five times worse. The picture on the State Fair website shows a plastic cup practically bursting with cake slices - ours had maybe three pieces, all gritty and impossibly, horrendously sweet, accompanied by maybe a scoop and a half of fairly decent but profoundly ordinary vanilla ice cream and bog standard whipped cream.

At $6, I would say - “Sure, it’s the State Fair - they can charge $6 for a half cup of ice cream and the world’s nastiest cake.” At $14, I am sufficiently irritated to consider demanding a refund.

Hereby condemned to: The Eighth Circle of Hell (Fraud)

Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Cup | Chocolate Strawberry Cup | $20

Here is the one and only kind thing we can say about the Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Cup from Chocolate Strawberry Cup: The strawberries were ripe. But beyond that: We’ve tried Dubai chocolate. We’ve loved Dubai chocolate. This dessert, which features hardened low-grade chocolate topped with a slurry of underflavored green “pistachio butter” and a light sprinkling of Shredded Wheat-like “knafeh” is absolutely, positively, and in no way representative of Dubai chocolate. AND IT COSTS TWENTY DOLLARS. $20! It’s all well and good that people fiending for the Dubai chocolate dragon should be punished for their trend chasing, but once you’re actually on the receiving end of said punishment, it’s hard not to take it personally.

Hereby condemned to: The Ninth Circle of Hell (Treachery)

FUTURE FAIR FOODS

In recognition of Heavy Table’s fifteen years of superb Fair food coverage, the State Fair New Foods Committee has allowed us early access to the 2026 list of foods. Bear in mind this list is not a complete, nor is it at all official. So here’s what we might look forward to next year.

Deep Fried Peanut Butter Pickled Pepper Ballllzzzz! On a Stick

All the things fair-goers love, on a stick.

Fingr Likn Vegn Bakn Chikn Tendiezzzzz

Lack of vowels indicates that this is cutting edge vegan cuisine but still super fun.

State Fair Seafood Tower

Three tiers of pickled herring. Fried smelt. Walleye fingers. $135. Serves one.

Dubai Chocolate Pickles on a Stick

Old meets new meets a wooden stick: Jumbo dill pickles hollowed out, stuffed with pistachio-tahini cream, coated in chocolate and boldly presented on skewers.

Spanakopitafflassant

Is it a spinach croissant, cooked in a waffle iron? If so, why? Served with lemony Greek yogurt.

Pigeon Pasties

Urban pigeon farmers Four and Twenty Gray Birds are making their Fair debut with the latest alternative protein baked in a hand pie. Tastes like chicken.

Deep Fried Water

They said it couldn’t be done!

The Dubuque Chocolate Sundae

In an unusual cross-border collaboration between a Twin Cities ice creamery and the Dubuque Chamber of Commerce, sweet corn ice cream is topped with a blend of chocolate sauce and creamed Iowa sweet corn, then sprinkled with gold flecks of corn pollen.

Juicy Lucy Lager

Infused with cheddar cheese powder and beef broth, served with a pickle garnish and a salt and pepper rim

FOOTNOTES

[1] EDITOR’S NOTE: Here are the nine circles of Hell, helpfully annotated with reference to the Minnesota State Fair’s food and drink selections.

First Circle (Limbo)

Foods that don't know what they're doing - well-meaning but confused foods that never really clicked.

Second Circle (Lust)

Instagram porn that doesn't follow through - good looking food that can't back it up.

Third Circle (Gluttony)

Food that provides quantity - lots of quantity - over quality.

Fourth Circle (Greed)

Food with terrible value prospects.

Fifth Circle (Wrath)

Food that makes us palpably angry - edible things that somehow manage to be truly infuriating.

Sixth Circle (Heresy)

Think, I don't know, soggy bacon or a "fiery hot" jalapeno dish that doesn't deliver a smidgen of heat. Foods that betray their own ideals, somehow.

Seventh Circle (Violence)

I'm going to be honest: I'm not sure what a food could do to get sentenced here.

Eighth Circle (Fraud)

This would have to be a food sold under wholly false pretenses. I'm not saying it never happens, but I'm guessing Heresy and Greed will catch most of the reprobate foods without us having to resort to Circle VIII.

Ninth Circle (Treachery)

See Circle VII. Probably reserved for food that causes gastrointestinal distress, but then again, the State Fair itself has a tendency to produce gastrointestinal distress, so this'll be a hard one to hand out.

OUR TEAM

This State Fair expedition is always a Herculean and/or Sisyphean task, and we're lucky to have a world-class crew of eaters (and writers, and photographers, and draw-ers) - to help us pull it off. We're incredibly grateful to our crew, including Stacy Brooks, M.C. Cronin, Becca Dilley, Joshua Feist, John Garland, Jeanne Lakso, James Norton, Amy Rea, WACSO, and Nathan Wold. And thanks to special guests Brandi Brown and Andy DuCett for joining the crew!

The 2025 Minnesota State Fair Food and Drink…