Welcome, dear readers, to the 16th annual expedition of the Heavy Table Wrecking Crew to the Great Minnesota Get-Together.
As is our custom, our team of writers, illustrators, and photographers 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.
A big thank you before we start: Twin Cities PBS and their new documentary series Relish Presents have underwritten this deranged odyssey of culinary adventure and we’re grateful to them for their support.
Below you’ll find candid notes on nearly 50 different foods and dozens more 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.
If you’re not a paying subscriber, this post will open up for everyone to enjoy next week Wednesday, September 2.
THE BEST FOOD STORIES AREN’T ALWAYS ON THE PLATE
The Minnesota State Fair is a celebration of everything we love about food — sharing it, discovering it, and the people who bring it to life.
This August, continue the journey with Relish Presents, a new documentary series from Twin Cities PBS celebrating the chefs, makers, and community leaders shaping Minnesota’s food culture.
At the heart of Relish Presents are six compelling stories featuring Alex Roberts, Lachelle Cunningham, Mecca Bos, Amalia Moreno Damgaard, Karyn Tomlinson, and Mateo and Erin Mackbee. Together, they offer a fresh perspective on the people, traditions, and communities shaping Minnesota’s food culture.
Whether you’re discovering a new favorite at the Fair or planning your next local food adventure, Relish Presents invites you to meet the people behind the food that brings us together.
Watch Relish Presents on Saturday, August 29 at 10:30 am, airing on TPT 2 and streaming on YouTube and on the PBS App.
AN ECONOMIC NOTE FROM EDITOR JAMES NORTON
Have you noticed in recent years that the Fair seems more and more expensive - in every way? It’s no illusion - from the cost of admission to the cost of food and drink to the cost of parking (thanks, Falcon Heights), the entire enterprise has gone from relative bargain to sweat-inducing splurge.
When we started our Fair roundups back in 2010, we brought around $200 in cash to cover our food expenses. This year we took out $700 in twenties, with little confidence that we wouldn’t have to grab our credit card to cover some gaps. It makes other gaps in hospitality (the ravaged, unusable Food Building stripped of its tables, freakin’ Falcon Heights charging $25 to park on the street, the general lack of easily accessible water) feel that much more painful. Get bent, Falcon Heights!
So: as much as we can this year, we’ll be laser-focused on value. We’ll be eyeballing portion sizes as well as quality and constantly hunting for values to celebrate and price-gouging to groan at. Check our “$26 Burning a Hole in Our Pockets” feature for our contributors’ takes on the best way to spend a modest $26 culinary budget during your trip to the Fair. And learn from our mistakes - we’ll be eating and drinking so much that we’ll happily take the landmines so that you don’t have to.
IN TODAY’S EDITION
Old School Vs. New School | James Norton
Strawberries Deals (And More Often, Not Deals) Forever | Bill Childs
Blue Ribbon Bargains | Stacy Brooks
Not Too Sweet/Way Too Sweet | Amy Rea
NEW DRINKS AT THE FAIR 2026 | Louis Livingston Garcia
What If The Friday’s Appetizer Menu, But A Little Different And At The Fair? | Bill Childs
Meat and Potatoes | Jeanne Lakso
Everything But the Oink | Eli Radtke
$26 Burning a Hole in Our Pockets | Staff
OLD SCHOOL VS. NEW SCHOOL
By James Norton
It’s easy to get set in one’s ways, and demand that old-school foods stay that way forever. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se - that’s how Europe got to curate some of the world’s all-time culinary classics, while we Americans experience Turkey-Blasted Spicy Doritos-Filled Oreos.
But the name of the game at the Minnesota State Fair is culinary innovation, and we’re nothing if not receptive to good intentions. So without further ado, here’s an eight-item rundown comparing new Fair foods with their old-school inspirations, starting with the best, moving on to the rest, and ending with “it blew up on the launchpad, please fetch one of those foamy all-purpose fire extinguishers.”
Peri-Peri Bowl | Afro Deli | $15
This item - high on my list of “Things I probably won’t remember after trying them” - is one of the real shockers of 2026. It’s fantastic.
The contrast and complement of fried sweet plantains and legit spicy fried chicken plus seemingly random but utterly delightful little mini beef sambusas is a feast for the mind as well as the mouth. Straight up delicious, also legitimately fun to eat. A perfect Fair food.
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: I would be hard pressed to like anything more than classic fried chicken, but the Peri-Peri Bowl takes that dish on such a surprising and rewarding journey that I felt legitimately enriched on a personal level. New school for the win. A home run.
Pumpkin Bar Funnel Cake | Taulelle’s Jurassic Corn Dogs | $12
Many questions have tormented humanity without resolution, including: Is the soul immortal? Is perpetual motion attainable? Why did they keep making Ghostbusters movies when the first one was essentially perfect? Does this shirt make me look fat?
Add to the list: How do you pronounce “Taulelle”? Is it “Tall-Ell?” “Too-Ellie?” “Ta-Lu-Lah?” Is this something we can ever really resolve? Probably not.
At any rate: Taulelle’s is offering a twist on the Fair classic funnel cake that adds a mellow hit of pumpkin plus cinnamon and a topping of cinnamon cream cheese frosting. The flavor is warm and soothing, the cream cheese frosting adds interest without being too sweet, and the size of the thing is massive, making for a truly good value. A smash success of a dish.
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: 100% new-school on this - Taulelle’s has taken a fairly tired staple festival food and reinvigorated it with depth and interest. A solid triple in baseball terms.
Dubai Whoopie Pie | Dino’s Gyros | $13
We’ve never really seen the point of whoopie pies, which tend to be dry, boring, and sort of like a tedious homemade riff on a Ho-Ho, itself a fairly mediocre dessert. But the Dino’s Gyros Dubai Chocolate twist on the whoopie pie actually works, and quite well - the thick, creamy pistachio filling puts up a real fight against the cakey exterior and the filo / honey / brown sugar / pistachio topping offers some pleasant crunch and contrast.
Is it expensive at $13? Kinda, but considering the $20 Dubai chocolate bars we’ve seen at gas stations (!), this is actually a fair bit of joy for an acceptably steep price tag.
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: The Dubai version wins. It’s not hard to elevate the whoopie pie, but anything can be screwed up at the Fair, and Dino’s actually nailed the brief by bringing a lot of interest and fun to a generally uninteresting dish.
Hmong Corndog | Union Hmong Kitchen | $16
This Hmong-style sausage bursts with flavor and offers surprising depth for a Fair food, and the accompanying citrus Kua Txob sauce adds a satisfyingly cool bite to complement the meat. The mostly flavorless corn dog jacket feels pointless, beyond cosmetics (the sausage isn’t necessarily gorgeous on its own), but the sausage and sauce combo works for certain. What maybe doesn’t work: $16 for a single not-massive sausage on a stick. [1]
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: The answer to this question depends 100% on your own relationship with money. If you’re happy to spend freely at the Fair and not really checking your wallet as you go, the Hmong corndog brings a lot of zazz and excitement to an old-school food and will be a welcome twist on an old favorite. If you’re the type to count your pennies and rail against price gougers, paying sixteen freaking dollars for a regular sized sausage wearing a jacket of fried batter will probably get your goat. Scrooges beware.
Elote Tots | Tot Boss | $9
An “elote” treatment is an easy way to dress up just about anything - throw some Tajín, corn, and a creamy sauce on something starchy, and Mission Accomplished. Does an elote topping elevate a basket of otherwise mediocre tater tots? Yes. Does it make for a meal worth savoring? Not really. But $9 buys you a lot of decent calories, and you absolutely can do worse for your dollar.
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: Well... this is a tie. Classic tater tots are fine. These elote tots are a little more expensive, but a little more fun, and ultimately... fine. Everybody gets a passing grade here.
Shakshuka Meatballs | French Meadow | $16
We get it: The whole thing with French Meadow is that the food is expensive. That’s how you know it’s fancy! Case in point: the restaurant’s shakshuka meatballs cost, on an ounce-by-ounce basis, about four times more than a new Lexus RX 350. [2]
We’re not against paying a lot of money for great food, but these saucy balls don’t exactly hit those heights. [3] Imagine a non-lethal bazooka packed with finely chopped herbs. Now imagine firing that bazooka directly into your own face. That’s the impact of these insanely herby, fairly bready meatballs. The tomato sauce that they bathe in lacks some of the spicy intensity we like in a good shakshuka, but it’s nice overall. That said: the strips of toast that come with the dish tasted stale and chewy rather than crispy; we would’ve instead enjoyed some pieces of challah.
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: Old-school shakshuka with eggs and challah trounce this State Fair variant, to say nothing of the value prospect.
Mango Sticky Refresher | Chan’s Eatery | $13
Thirteen mickey-frickin’ dollars for a cup of ice and a quarter cup of viscous sweet liquid that is Elmer’s Glue-adjacent? Seriously? $13?
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: Actual mango sticky rice all the way. Trying to render a beautifully balanced classic dessert in liquid format was a fool’s errand.
Korean Bao | Rooted and Wild | $9
After a few minutes of our tasters riffing on this vegan spin on a classic pork bao, I had a realization: Other people were writing the review for me, and I should just put on my listening ears.
Here, in no particular order, are the various ways the taste and texture of these bao wrappers were described:
“Cardboard.”
“Styrofoam.”
“You know those... what are they? Packing peanuts? Those.”
“Cardboard.” (again)
“Communion wafers.”
“Fluffy cardboard.”
The sickeningly sweet one-dimensional ersatz “meat” contained within the insulation foam exterior did nothing to lessen the blow.
NEWBIE VS. CLASSIC VERDICT: Without a second of hesitation, stick with classic bao.
HONORABLE MENTION CATEGORY:
Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes | Australian Battered Potatoes | $22
I’m not actually supposed to talk about these battered potatoes because a lot of other people are covering them within their sections. But I got so excited tasting these because they were TERRIBLE. Weirdly starchy, almost completely lacking in flavor, dotted with bits of saccharine sweet blobs of brown meat, almost unidentifiable as food. The sort of food you bite into, spit right out, and then taste again because you want to try to understand everything that’s going wrong.
Are they expensive at $22? Yes. Are they worth it? If you love bad movies like The Room, Miami Connection, Samurai Cop, and Manos: The Hands of Fate, and you love eating food that is the equivalent of those movies, they are an excellent value. They are a story you can tell your children… and your grandchildren, too. The Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes from Australian Battered Potatoes are part of our story, now - part of humanity’s story.
STRAWBERRY DEALS (AND, MORE OFTEN, NOT DEALS) FOREVER
By Bill Childs
“Every day a semi arrives filled with strawberries from Southern California” —the nice gal at Strawberries ‘n’ Crème, when asked the source of the berries.
I don’t really know what I expected, to be honest—“we’ve got a patch out back under the Skyride and we pick them fresh for each dish”? Let’s be real about the berry supply chain options here.
That’s probably especially true this year: there are a lot of new strawberry dishes on offer, and we probably don’t grow enough in Minnesota to feed all of us strawberry sickos. So let’s consider this year’s new strawberry dishes.
Strawberry Crunch Donuts | Solem’s Mini Donuts | $12
As I approached this booth, a kid, maybe 4, started screaming, “I wanna see the donut robot! I wanna see the donut robot!” And sure enough, the donut machines at this stand are in fact branded “Donut Robot” (Mark V; famously, the Donut Robots I through IV were prone to going rogue and making donuts out of anything or anyone nearby).
Of the strawberry-related dishes, this is the one least related to actual strawberries, but it is an entirely fine, if unneeded, variant on an excellent theme. It’s sugar on sugar with some more sugar drizzled on top, but also with what seems to be the filling extruded from Pop-Tarts (complimentary). Hopefully they’ll speed up operations, because, while the Donut Robot is efficient (but no longer murderous! allegedly!), the process of putting icing and streusel crunch on the rim is, uh, ponderous.
$12 for a mildly elevated batch of mini-donuts is aggressive but not particularly out of line for the Fair in the year 2026. Solem’s is a major operation with a nine-month schedule with fifteen food stands—and they are no doubt pretty tuned in to what various markets will bear. I also think they’ve figured out that it is worth jumping through whatever hoops are necessary to get on the New Foods list—I don’t think they’re coming up with new dishes just for the love of the game and I don’t think that they’re coming up with new stuff for, like, the Steele County Fair. (As some of us were discussing, there’s probably space for an in-depth piece about how the State Fair’s list gets generated—and why some new foods don’t end up on it.)
Anyway: my main conclusion (one that I’ll return to in the other piece I’m contributing this year) is that mini-donuts aren’t broken and don’t need fixing. But if you want a mini-donut, the other Donut Robots around the Fairgrounds will satisfy that need for less money. Just make sure you don’t make eye contact with them if they’re Marks I through IV.
Strawberries & Blueberry Creme Parfait | Strawberries n Creme | $14
In contrast, these folks understand the basic truth: Strawberries are good, even if they came off a semi truck! You don’t actually have to do all that much with them! And “not all that much” is what we get here. The order of operations here seems to be: put some strategically selected strawberries at the bottom of the cup, so that there’s as much air as there is fruit up for fully half of the cup. Then we throw in some blueberry creme (flavored, as far as I can discern, by having driven the non-dairy whipped cream truck drive past a blueberry farm at high speed) and put a few bog standard waffle chips in it and call it a day.
That might sound like a criticism; it’s really not! We don’t need a lot of distractions from strawberries even, as noted, strawberries that have been on a semi for two thousand miles. At $14, you’re paying probably two bucks per berry (with another couple bucks for the air); you will have to sit down for a while to contemplate if that price is acceptable to you.
Strawberry Tanghulu | Iemochi Japanese Confections | $12
At this point, it’s uncommon for there to be a form factor of food at the Fair that is wholly new to the site. But, so far as I know, the tanghulu is making its debut as a concept. My daughter-in-law (as of this last Saturday!), who accompanied us for part of our adventures, reports that the traditional story about the food’s origin is that a concubine in the Southern Song Dynasty was suffering from some ill-defined ailment and was revived by a doctor who prescribed hawthorn with rock sugar. That, naturally, leads us, 750 years later, to exactly five almost unnaturally beautiful strawberries on skewers with clear hard candy coatings.
Honestly, if I were an imperial concubine feeling rough, these might revive me too. The strawberries might be off that same semi truck as the ones above, but they’re perfectly selected and delicious. The coating provides an ideal crunchy delight as you bite down. Others in the group report a preference for the mandarins, if only because the size makes it more practical and more dignified to eat, if you’re into dignity.
At $12, the per-berry price is probably even higher than the Parfait, but there is some production going on here, and you’re getting something you likely haven’t seen before.
Sara’s Tipsy Pies - Strawberry Ube Sundae Tart - $10
For being a dish with “strawberry” as the first word in its name, from a vendor with the word “tipsy” in its name, it’s at least a bit odd that this dish has no alcohol in it and (at least in the one we got) surprisingly little strawberry. But Sara’s doesn’t booze everything up and this dish is no worse for its absence. Indeed, it’s my favorite of the new strawberry dishes, and my sense was that was true for the whole group—especially at the price (on a State Fair grading curve).
We start with a sturdy and serviceable shortbread crust—nothing that you’re going to enter in a contest, but it stands up well to the task. Then a layer of fudge, some ube and strawberry marshmallow cream (much more ube than strawberry), some whipped cream, a hint of strawberry sauce, and some glitter. It’s ambitious and it’s presented nicely—and they do it well. Do I want more strawberry flavor? Sure. But it’s an unusually elevated dessert to pull off at scale, especially at the price.
I wouldn’t be mad to get this as a dessert at a solid sit-down restaurant, and even not at the Fair, $10 is reasonable. On the State Fair pricing scale, it’s a deal.
BLUE RIBBON BARGAINS
By Stacy Brooks
The 2026 Blue Ribbon Bargain Book promises “big deals” and “huge savings,” an appealing pitch in this era of state fair food inflation. But do the deals actually merit buying a $5 coupon book and spending non-significant amounts of money on the various items?
There was no feasible way to evaluate the Bargain Book’s entire 60-plus food and beverage coupons, so we settled on a subset of seven. In choosing which ones to evaluate, we looked at the percentage discount and the bottom line to create an initial list of the most noteworthy deals. From there, we chose coupons across a variety of categories including breakfast, beverage, dessert, and vegetarian, with a preference for vendors who aren’t already represented on this year’s official new food list.
We’ve rated each coupon as a “USE IT” or “SKIP IT,” taking both deliciousness and value into account.
Coupon #6: $2 off one-regular size order of CinnieSmiths mini cinnamon rolls (regularly $9.50, $7.50 with discount) at CinnieSmiths
A respectable queue had already accumulated at the CinnieSmiths booth when we arrived around 8:45am—the prime location near Gate 2, the early hour, and the coupon make this a popular first stop. Our regular-size order of mini cinnamon rolls ($7.50 with coupon) consisted of four rolls, a bit of a skimpy portion for the price by non-fairground standards. However, these were one of the few items that our group polished off. The rolls are freshly baked from scratch on-site (you can watch them being prepared through a window), with an intense cinnamon flavor and tender texture. If your favorite part of a cinnamon roll is the center, these will be especially appealing. Considering the meager portion sizes of many of the mediocre new foods we sampled, this is a decent value by fair standards.
The coupon verdict: USE IT
Coupon #9: $4.25 off one mega-sized Greek gyro sandwich (regularly $17, $12.75 with discount) at Gyros by G&G Concessions
There are many people who want to eat a square meal at the fair, prefer reliability over novelty, and/or can’t stomach deep-fried food—this mega-sized gyro sandwich ($12.75 with coupon) is for them. There is nothing groundbreaking about Gyros by G&G Concessions’ take on the gyro, but it is prepared with care and decent ingredients. The pita is pillowy, the meat is well-seasoned and plentiful, the sauce has a nice tang, and the tomatoes and onion seem freshly chopped. It might not be as glamorous as the novelty items on the official new foods list, but it is a better value than most of them.
The coupon verdict: USE IT
Coupon #21: $4 off one grilled cheese meal (regularly $8, $4 with discount) at Hamline Church Dining Hall
Although the coupon doesn’t specify this, the menu at Hamline Church Dining Hall lists the grilled cheese meal ($4 with coupon) as a kid’s item. However, many adults in the queue were ordering the grilled cheese meal without issue, and the accompaniments make it feel more like an adult entree—a pickle and a choice of mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted potatoes, buttered corn, or a bag of chips.
Like Hamline’s other entrees, it’s served on a ceramic plate, with metal silverware, in a pleasant indoor seating area. If you’ve ever had grilled cheese at a family restaurant in a small Midwestern town, you’ve eaten this sandwich—it’s unpretentious and comforting. The potatoes were a bit underseasoned, but that was easily addressed with the salt, pepper, ketchup, hot sauce, and other condiments kept well-stocked on each table. Throughout our meal, the church’s pastor and volunteers of all ages circulated around the dining room, clearing tables and chatting with patrons. Considering the eye-popping prices at the fair, this is an incredible value, not only for the food but also for the nostalgic, soul-restoring atmosphere.
The coupon verdict: USE IT
Coupon #22: $2 off one ice cream bar (regularly $7, $5 with discount) at Mini Melts/Wonder Bar
Wonder Bar is a cute little under-the-radar stand, with a friendly staffer who thanked us for stopping by. Our ice cream bar ($5 with coupon) was dipped into chocolate coating to order, with a choice of toppings. Although the coupon listed pretzels as a topping option, the actual toppings on hand were peanuts, almonds, sprinkles, or Oreos. We went with Oreos and enjoyed the extra boost of chocolate. The portion is generous (larger than a Dilly Bar), and the coating is more flavorful and less waxy than typical ice cream novelties.
The coupon verdict: USE IT
Coupon #30: Buy one, get one sambusa (regularly $8, $7 for two with discount) at Afro Deli & Grill
Confusingly, the coupon lists the price of a sambusa at Afro Deli as $7, while the menu board lists them as $8 each. In addition, the lentil sambusas are full-sized and the beef sambusas are miniature. Upon presenting our coupon and asking for one of each type we were handed one lentil and two mini beef sambusas ($7 with coupon). Although we loved the kicky heat of the lentil sambusas, the beef sambusas were quite small and the portion of dipping sauce was skimpy. Especially considering that Afro Deli has locations open year-round, this doesn’t seem like a great value. (The coupon can also be used for a $2 discount on a single sambusa; considering the portion size, that doesn’t seem worthwhile either.)
The coupon verdict: SKIP IT
Coupon #41: $2 off one falafel-on-a-stick (regularly $8, $6 with discount) at Falafel King
Falafel King’s falafel-on-a-stick ($6 with coupon) get full marks for ease of eating and portability—the falafel hold together quite well and can actually be consumed while on a stick. Unfortunately, that sturdy consistency meant that these were among the driest falafel that we’ve ever eaten, with hard, crusty exteriors. Even the pleasantly assertive spicy sauce couldn’t make up for the unappetizing texture.
The coupon verdict: SKIP IT
Coupon #49: $3 off one 16 oz. honey beverage (regularly $6, $3 with discount) at Minnesota Honey Producers Association
For a sweet finish, we headed to the Minnesota Honey Producers Association, where their coupon can be used for a lemonade or cream soda. We went with the honey cream soda ($3 with coupon) and were delighted by the honey-forward flavor. We’d pay full price for this unique, delicious beverage, so the fact that you can get it for the same price as a bottle of water makes it a great deal.
The coupon verdict: USE IT
HAIKU
Honey cream soda
is my go to refresher.
Skip the mango drink!
– Joshua Feist
NOT TOO SWEET/WAY TOO SWEET
By Amy Rea
When offered a choice between sweet and savory, nine times out of ten I’ll choose the savory, and the tenth time will ask if the sweet is maybe also a little bit savory or at least not very sugary. (This is a condition of my adulthood; as a child, I couldn’t get enough sugar. Perhaps this is an evolutionary thing for me.)
If you love intensely sweet things, you might enjoy the things I didn’t like, and vice versa. After all, most of the prices for the items below are questionably high, and it would be even worse to spend the money only to find you’ve gotten something not sweet enough/far too sweet for your tastes.
Dill With it, Cookie! | Urban Glow Mocktails | $5
This was one of the few bargains we saw. It’s essentially a giant sugar cookie, soft and crumbly, with white chocolate chips and just a trace of dill pickle, more like a faint aftertaste than anything noticeable. An entirely serviceable sugar cookie that was sweet without being cloying, and it’s big enough for a couple of kids to share. Think of it as a sweet pickle where the sweet drowns out the dill.
Banana Butterscotch Barnraiser | Minnesota Farmers Union | $11
On paper, this sounded like it had the potential to tip over into frighteningly sweet territory, but in reality, it was a bit bland. The price wasn’t bad given the number of decent-quality components, but it felt more like a shrug than a have-to-have.
Butter Brew Mustache Pretzel | Blue Moon Dine-In | $11
Pro: Super fun to play with. Several team members got their photos taken with the mustache pretzel on their face.
Con: Flavor? What flavor? This was essentially bland dough with a bit of ice cream on the side. Definitely not too sweet. It could be said that, except for the ice cream, it wasn’t sweet at all. Or savory. Or sour. Or, you know, any flavor at all.
Is $11 worth it to have a pretzel mustache to play with? Your call.
French Chouxnut Sundae | Bridgeman’s | $11
Bridgeman’s is that vendor that is seemingly willing to throw any food against the wall to see if it will stick. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. In this case, it mostly sticks; several team members (including me) commented on how good the espresso ice cream was. But more divisive was the addition of the choux pastry donut filled with milk chocolate mousse and dark chocolate fondant icing. It’s–a lot. For someone with a “not too sweet” preference, the ice cream alone would have been a treat, or maybe the ice cream with some of the dark chocolate fondant icing. Adding in the more sugary donut and mousse tipped it into the danger zone.
Pumpkin Bar Funnel Cake | Taulelle’s | $12
This one surprised most of us, including me. I’m used to thinking of funnel cakes as being doused in powdered sugar and, for me, almost inedible. But this funnel cake had a light pumpkin spice flavor that was warming rather than overly sweet. Hot out of the fryer, it was mouth-melty and, yes, delicious. Some of our team wished the pumpkin flavor was more prominent. I was fine with it as it was. It was also one of the better deals of the day, as it’s enormous and easily shareable.
Brandy Old-Fashioned Cookie Dough | Kora + Mila | $12
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I’ve had some syrupy brandy old-fashioneds over the years that I didn’t like, but I’ve also had some that were more whiskey-forward and barely sweet that were quite good. However, I didn’t anticipate that this would be in a category of its own, and not in a positive way. Supposedly there are dried tart cherries, but the cherry flavor that runs rampant tasted chemical-y and overwhelming, neither sweet nor savory, just–well–blech.
Blue Moon Crunch | Minnesnowii | $12
I will admit that I pretty much stood alone on the team in my dislike of this shave ice-style item. It’s clearly not designed for someone who doesn’t like heavily sweet things, with its blue raspberry syrup, condensed sweetened milk, and Fruity Pebbles. The sugary syrup combined with the sweetened milk, even before I got a bite of Fruity Pebbles, took the whole thing way, way past my sweetness tolerance. But again–others found it refreshing and tasty. It’s also huge.
Strawberry and Mandarin Tanghulu | Iemochi | $12
Prepare for a wait if you order these, as they’re made to order, but know that the wait is worth it., especially for the Mandarin flavor. Slices of fruit are swirled and glazed with a crackly sugar shell. Sounds sugar-intensive, but the fruit keeps it from tipping into cloying territory. They’re fun (and messy) to eat. They’re not inexpensive, but they’re not the worst offenders in terms of pricing and are worth a splurge.
Dubai Whoopie Pie | Dino’s Gyros | $13
It didn’t seem like a good omen when I was waiting in line at Dino’s and a woman approached me and asked if I was going to order the Dubai pie. When I said yes, she said she and her friend got one, only ate a couple of bites, and wondered if I wanted the rest. I appreciate the desire to not waste food, but opted to get a fresh pastry. One thing I can say for it, it wasn’t too sweet. But it also wasn’t too good. The pistachio cream was unpleasantly grainy in texture and the dark chocolate cakes were bland. No one was enthused about it. [4]
Apple Donut Ham Grinder | Minnesota Farmers Union | $19
This had the dubious distinction of being the first item we bought that elicited howls of disbelief over the price. Sure, it’s a sizable sandwich, and there are good elements in it: the bread is good, the ham is OK. What was described as apple donuts were basically battered and fried rings of apple. Some thought it would have been better if it had actual apple donuts on it. While I often like sweet/savory combos, for me this didn’t really work. If I’d paid $19 for it, I would have pulled the apples off and just eaten the ham sandwich and felt grumbly about the cost of that sandwich.
Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes | Australian Battered Potatoes | $22
I’ve been watching Netflix’s remake of My Brilliant Career and enjoying hearing Sybylla Melvyn describe things as being “tickety boo,” which apparently means things are going well or smoothly. I’d hoped maybe Australian Battered Potatoes would give me at least a tickety boo dish. Alas. There was absolutely, conclusively nothing tickety boo about this. There was no tickety, no tick, no boo. It was a disaster. For $22, it should at least have been tickety.
FAIRLY GOOD DRINKS, UNFAIR FEELING PRICES
By Louis Livingston-Garcia
While ordering a beer at The Ball Park Cafe, a man next to me said, “so, will beers be $20 next year?”
His server remarked how the cost of things is challenging these days.
The cost of food, drink, gas — and life generally — is out of control. In 2016, a 12-ounce IPA pour at the Minnesota State Fair from Bent Brewstillery (RIP) cost $5. A Bad Weather Funnel Cloud funnel cake beer cost $4.75. Now, most are $9, though I did snag some for $8. A pint of flavored seltzer cost $10, a boozy frozen treat $12.
In short, it costs a lot more to try what seems to be a dwindling pool of gimmicky state fair beers as seltzers, particularly from Lift Bridge, have creeped up everywhere. Which makes sense: the younger generations aren’t drinking beer. My local liquor store sells a lot of BestBoxes.
But more and more I wonder how I would approach the fair if I didn’t have a review budget. In 2026, I could try a Sweet Corn Summer Ale for $5. Today, at $8 or $9, I wouldn’t with my own money. It’s outrageous.
Like with any industry right now where cans of beer or even video game consoles keep rising in price, it’s hard to see brewers able to keep taking risks on fun beers, and even harder for buyers to take the risk with hard-earned money.
This year I took an approach that was part, what’s of the most interest to me, and part what was the most refreshing as I just couldn’t beat the heat. Here’s this year’s stack of picks, ranked from tastiest to nearly undrinkable.
Rare Candy Pink Lemonade Sour by Elm Creek Brewing Co. | Ball Park Cafe | $8 for 12 oz.
Tart, refreshing pink lemonade. Elm Creek is known for hoppy beers and fruited sours, so this one seemed like a slam dunk for the brewery. And it is! It feels like a beer that would complement just about any state fair deep-fried item leaning savory and salty. Sweet and fruity, with just a touch of tartness.
Tropic North by Back Channel Brewing Co. | Ball Park Cafe | $8 for 12 oz.
A sweet and refreshing concoction, with guava and pear flavors playing the starring roles. My wife, a fruited beer fan, even approved of this one. The wheat base is perfect, giving it a bright, sweet foundation to build upon. Clean, great with the salty treats we had, and another star this year.
First Place Peach by Pen Name Fermentation Project | LuLu’s Public House | $12 for 12 oz.
A traditional tart and woody peach sour beer that is reminiscent of what Fair State and Starkeller used to put out in their prime: complex barrel aged sour beers made properly in oak. I miss those days of drinking sours on Fair State’s patio. It is maybe the most complicated and complex beer at the Fair, and it doesn’t initially seem like it’s for the Fair at all.
The wood and cinnamon aspects don’t sound refreshing, but it was one of my favorite beers of the day. It is also one of the costliest beers of the day coming in at $12 for a 12-ounce pour. The only real sticking point with the beer — which started with shades of sweet peach, vanilla cream, and oak — is that if it’s a warm day (as the Fair opener was), it develops more of a twang and tartness, but also a desirable marshmallow and wood, with just a hint of cinnamon. The twang might be too much for some, but this is a proper beer for beer nerds.
Soft Serve Royal Peach Beer and Royal Raspberry twist cone by Pryes Brewing Co. | Pryes Brewing Pavilion | $12
A twist cone of the Royal Peach and Royal Raspberry Pryes beers is better than the actual beers. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I don’t love their sours, but the cones have more of a sweet fruit flavor. And of course, being made into an actual frozen treat ups the gimmick factor, but also its Fair vibes level. It feels like a fun Fair food, and it delivers. Make sure your kids don’t see it; ours were upset they didn’t get “ice cream.”
Homer Black Pepper IPA by Surly Brewing Co. | Ball Park Cafe | $9 for 12 oz.
This one works. A citrus pith-forward West Coast IPA, it features fresh fruit and pine, just as advertised, which alone would be pleasing. The touch of peppercorn in the finish is complementary, rather than weird or overpowering, but it did seem unsuited for the hot temperatures.
Cherry Cola Hard Soda by Lift Bridge Brewing Company | RC’s BBQ | $10 (gluten removed)
At $10, I wasn’t sure about this one. As a seltzer, it just sounds too pricey on paper. And even after my wife and I fell in love and quickly finished the beer, it’s still too pricey. But wow is this good. You don’t taste the booze — it just tastes like a nice sweet cherry cola. Almost like a Cherry Pepsi, and with a bonus cherry in it. Refreshing and delicious, but I still can’t get over the $10.
Sasquatch and Golden Yeti dirty sodas by Dodopop | $9 each
I have three NA drinks on this list because they just sounded better than a lot of the seltzers and slushies and wine and you get it.
The Sasquatch, made with Mug Root Beer, vanilla syrup, and vanilla cream, was an absolutely refreshing joy. The waves of vanilla flavor and creamy mouthfeel, along with memories of enjoying Mug as a kid, just made this drink hit.
Golden Yeti wasn’t as good, the Fanta Orange soda could have used more vanilla syrup and cream, but was also not a drink we regretted.
But here’s the tough part to swallow: each drink is $9. And in this economy, that’s kind of wild, especially when there isn’t any booze and they’re just utilizing existing sodas instead of crafting their own.
Two-Tone Bloody Mary Mocktail by Urban Glow | $9
This NA Bloody Mary cocktail has a strong salsa flavor, it is crafted with house-made tomatillo salsa, featuring a nice gentle heat on the back end, but is not ideal for a hot day. Each sip is also filled with what looks like pepper bits, which makes the mouthfeel basically watered down salsa. I know that was advertised, but I felt like I needed chips to dip into it. Not a dealbreaker, but not ideal, and far from the best Bloody Mary concoction I’ve had. It was nice to have the Cheweenie mini hot dog and cheese in the skewer.
Old Ranch Hand by Dual Citizen | Rooted & Wild by Snack House and Sabino’s Pizza Pies | $8 for 12 oz.
It used to bring quite a lot of joy to check out the new gimmick beers at the fair. But now, it seems like more places like Lift Bridge are leaning into flavored seltzers and other items, leaving gimmicks like Mini-Donut beer behind (a still-great beer, by the way).
This ranch dressing-inspired beer, however, leans heavily into gimmick and the final result is abhorrent. I like Dual Citizen beer in general but couldn’t stomach this from the start; it smells like a ranch made in a food lab to mimic fake ranch flavor.
Even the large college cafeteria jars of ranch would blow this out of the water in a taste test. The ranch-seasoning-topped rim made it worse. I like a well-done savory beer, not a blast of Saltines, especially when the addition barely dissolves into the beer. An all-around failure that wouldn’t please the people I used to eat Jack’s pepperoni pizzas with, dipping into copious amounts of Hidden Valley.
WHAT IF THE FRIDAY’S APPETIZER MENU, BUT A LITTLE DIFFERENT AND AT THE FAIR?
By Bill Childs
James Norton and I had a similar idea this year: A lot of the new foods in recent years are mild twists on bog standard Fair food (which is itself often stuff you’d see at any given Friday’s or Chili’s or whatever other places you have on that one stretch of road near the Target in whatever suburb you happen to be going through).
Those twists are, unsurprisingly, pricier than their routine counterparts, either over by the Starbucks, no, the other Starbucks, no, the one next to where the Hobby Lobby was, or the ones elsewhere at the Fair.
(For the logical and chilling end of the appetizer industrial complex, subscribe to Midwest Excellence and read about some of my very foolish friends’ efforts to make Buffalo Wild Wings regret having an unlimited appetizer special: The Limit Does Not Exist or: The Buffalo Wild Wings Bottomless Apps Experience.)
Anyway, of the ones I tried, I don’t think any of them are clearly preferable to their antecedents, and some are affirmatively disappointing.
Longanisa Cheese Curd Lumpia | Lumpia City | $14
Lumpia City’s French Toast Lumpia was one of my favorites last year and I was excited for this savory one this year, described as featuring Filipino pork sausage and cheese curds. Totino’s Pizza Rolls, but with less indeterminate meat and some Wisconsin cheese curds, along with sweet chili sauce instead of whatever sauce you can find in the back of your fridge?
I’m in, even if I’m telling you perhaps more about my early ‘90s college experience than I intended to.
The sausage was good and the crust solid. But the cheese curds? Missing. We all peered as closely as we could, and I’m willing to acknowledge that my eyes are not what they once were, but we just couldn’t find any.
At $14, this ended up running us about $2 per bite and I’d have preferred just cheese curds.
Dill With It, Cookie | Urban Glow | $5
Here’s my confession: I don’t really like dill pickles. Like, I avoid them. So when I say that this cookie (billed as a Hollmann’s Table-created white chocolate chip cookie with chopped up dill pickles and dill) really only has a hint of dill or pickle flavor, that would usually be a plus. But what you’re left with is a slightly salty white chocolate chip cookie, and white chocolate is…bad. So it’s a $5 cookie that doesn’t really deliver what is promised, and what’s left is just sort of there.
Fried & The Furious | The Herbivorous Butcher | $18
I have a weirdly intense love for the Fast & Furious movies, and if you name your sandwich after them, you’re already ahead. This is the Herbivorous Butcher’s vegan take on a Cubano—with vegan pork and cheese in a fried crust that looks like nothing so much as a Crunchwrap (complimentary? mostly?).
The first few bites mostly taste fried, but once you get into the non-meat of it, things pick up. The vegan copies are pretty convincing, it’s reasonably well balanced, and most of us thought it was solid. There are more vegan options at the Fair than there used to be, but it’s still definitely a bit underserved, and it’s nice to have this choice.
But: $18. Oof.
Elote Tots | Tot Boss | $9
James wrote about this too. Tots are mostly not broken, but I did try some of the straight tots from this place (with the tenders), and they were shockingly flavorless. So Tot Boss seems to represent the situation where the twist is in fact a major improvement on a dish that you can order from, as we did, the same confused teen who asked what sauce we wanted but had no idea what sauces they had to offer.
So if we’re comparing the Elote Tots to the same place’s regular tots, it’s no contest: these are vastly better and a deal at $9. If we’re instead comparing them to what’s coming off the Sysco truck at the BW3 out by where the Herberger’s used to be, well, it’s a closer call.
SPAM Dog | SPAM Truck | $10
Hot dogs aren’t broken. Spam’s awesome, but there is no reason to force it into a meat cylinder. You don’t need this, and you really don’t need this for 10 US dollars.
Chorizo [sic] Manchego Croquettes | Paella Depot | $12
(Please be patient while I contemplate what a “paella depot” would look like. Waterslides filled with paella coming in from miles away? Huge tanker trucks of paella? The mind reels.)
That “[sic]” in the header tells you most of what you need to know here. These—another pizza roll adjacent option—would probably be good with chorizo. You can again blame our old eyes, but the photos don’t lie: it’s like a vegetarian decided to save us from ourselves and omit the chorizo. What’s there is good and well prepared, but for $12, I would prefer to have all of the ingredients.
Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes | Australian Battered Potatoes | $22
This isn’t part of the theme and isn’t one of the things I got assigned, but as a group we try most everything, and so this is a thing I tried. I like honey; I like brisket; I like potatoes; I can imagine a world in which that combination is great. I cannot identify what went wrong here, but I suspect it was many things. But it was terrible. Genuinely one of the worst things I have eaten in this year and possibly this century. I hope that they realize that they accidentally went to the Restaurant Depot in the Bad Place or something and that by the back half of the Fair they’re serving something that tastes less like one would imagine it feels like to be in Mike Lindell’s head.
MEAT AND POTATOES
By Jeanne Lakso
This year’s Fair is a bit crazy-making. Sky-high prices boost expectations to new heights and vendors seem to be struggling to deliver. It used to be that you could gaily snack your way around the fair, trying a variety of deep-fried and frozen goodies on sticks and not take out a second mortgage. While you can still find pronto pups for $7.50 and all-you-can-drink milk is $3, getting a more substantial meal can be a challenge. On behalf of Fair-goers hungering for a meaty meal, we checked out some new (and classic) options. Here are our results in descending order, from highest to lowest price.
Crack-n-Cheese Bowl | Jive Turkey BBQ | $18.50
New vendor Jive Turkey BBQ has registered the term “Crack-n-Cheese” with the US Patent Office, so I had high hopes for some great cheesy macaroni at the bottom of this barbecued turkey bowl. What we weren’t expecting was the weirdly vinegary pulled turkey on top, pungent enough to clear the sinuses. Was it a variation on Carolina-style barbecue? The vinegar permeated the bowl, right down to the macaroni and cheese. We had no love for the punch-in-the-nose turkey; if it was hickory smoked, the flavor was lost. For $18.50, give it a miss.
Shakshuka Lamb Meatballs | French Meadow | $16
I cheated a bit on this one. There are only tomatoes and no potatoes in these lamb and pork meatballs in shashuka, a Middle Eastern/North African sauce that’s usually served with eggs poached in it. The meatballs and sauce are served with sourdough crostini advertised as “chimichurri-spiced” but barely flavored. The red sauce, however, got the heavy hand, to the point where several tasters described it as “way too herby.” Also, at $8 per meatball, please see Lexus comparison elsewhere in this newsletter.
Jamaican Jerk Chicken Loaded Fries | Midtown Global Market’s Irie Jamaican Express | $15
I expected this variation on nachos-but-with-fries would rise or fall on the jerk spices in the chicken and the sauce. I wasn’t blown away. What minimal spice is in the jerk sauce is tamped way down by the ranch dressing drizzled over the top. The chicken is decent, but there’s not much of a kick. The fries are solid, but made up about three-quarters of the ($15) bowl. We (once again) questioned the value of this offering, along with the decision to make it Minnesota spice level. Sometimes it’s hard to tell on Day One where things are heading, so if you like good fries with some chicken and want more spice, ask for it. The staff was friendly, despite the extra busy first day.
Thanksgiving in a Bowl | Salem Dining Hall | $9
Salem Dining Hall’s been around for 77 years, serving up egg coffee and comfort food (plus an occasional “new food” hit like their Swedish Sundae from a couple years back. Their Thanksgiving in a Bowl is fine. You can get it to go, or have a seat in the second-oldest church dining hall on the fairgrounds, and have a conversation with a nice young man about your Beatles shirt and your favorite Beatles album while watching scrubbed-cheeked youngsters and the pastor serving food and doing all the organizing an after-lunch shift change requires. The food is fine and mostly canned, and it’s nice to sit down with nice people. If you miss 1970s-era TV dinners, you’ll find your people here.
Tots n Tenders | Tot Boss | $9
This one made the list because it was literally meat (well, poultry) and potatoes. Here I am, channeling my inner six-year-old: I’d like some Tots ‘n’ Tenders, MAMA!!!!!!” The chicken tenders are big and crispy. The tots are crisp. There’s a choice of sauces, including ketchup and ranch. If you too are a whiny six-year-old, your mama could get you some Tots n Tenders, and depending on how whiny you are, $9 might be an okay price, although that’s for the small-sized order. There’s also a $12 boat for a whinier, hungrier child and/or parent.
Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes | Australian Battered Potatoes | $22
The Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes were, in two words, overwhelmingly awful. In three words from a colleague who has been part of every Heavy Table Checklist: “Worst. Thing. Ever.” In four words: “Violent to my mouth.” The battered potato planks aren’t offensive, but they’re not worth eating. The brisket bits got compared to Jack Links Meat Snax with more fat. The whole plate is drowned in forgettable nacho cheese sauce. To cap off a sub-par experience, it was one of the most expensive things we tried. America may not be a favorite of many right now, but hey, Australia, these potatoes are aggressively bad even for a country where everything is trying to poison you. Run away.
Ham Loaf Mini-Meal | Hamline Dining Hall | $9
Hamline Dining Hall is so old it makes the other surviving church eatery look like a teenager, and their Ham Loaf comes from a family recipe. A half-portion of ham loaf, doused with gravy, served with a scoop of gravy-doused mashed potatoes looked like more than I could handle. But being seated at communal tables and served by smiling people including the church’s head pastor, was exactly what I needed. “Feeding people is what the church is supposed to do,” said Senior Pastor Mariah Tollgaard as we finished our last bites of the day. Amen to that. Hamline is much less crowded after the breakfast rush. The lines move quickly, but it’s still an oasis of calm and what they used to call “fellowship.” Absolutely worth $9.
EVERYTHING BUT THE OINK
By Eli Radtke
It seems like we have been inundated with chicken these past few years. Fried, roasted, spatchcocked, smoked, etc. It had me looking around, thinking “what the cluck?”
Fear not, because the other white meat is back in a big way with Fair season. From snout to tail, the pig has been raised up in classic MN state fair fashion, especially looking at some of the new offerings on the table. Vendors used everything but the oink this year, although you might contribute a squeal when you see some of these prices.
Apple Doughnut Ham Grinder | Minnesota Farmers Union | $19
Much like some of our favorite Sunday-morning cartoon characters from back in the day, my eyes did the AWOOGAH when I saw the price tag for this sandwich composed of deep fried cinnamon apples, uncured ham, arugula, hot honey, and ricotta spread. I have been pleasantly surprised before, though, and what’s not to love about ham and doughnuts?
It turns out, a lot. This sandwich was shockingly bland for the amount of flavor each of its parts brought to the table. The “doughnut” was just soggy apple slices, the ham looked like a villain who leeches joy and color from the world had attacked it, and the bread was stale.
At a whopping 19 dollars, it’s way too much money for food you won’t enjoy.
Mocktail Bloody | Urban Glow Two Tone Bloody Mary Mocktails | $9
Yes, having the wiener-sporting garnish as the “pig” in this salsa-and-olive brine mocktail is cheating a little bit, but let’s color outside the lines, shall we?
Mocktails are a great idea at the fair. For too long has alcoholic beverages been the norm, it’s nice to drink something refreshing that keeps you in the right mind to drive home later.
This isn’t it, though. The drink tasted essentially like un-salted V8 juice. For tomato enjoyers, the flavor-forward might be a positive, but I thought it lost the thread of what it was trying to be. At $9 a pop, it’s not the cheapest drink you can get at the fair, but I wouldn’t file it away as egregious.
Verdict: Tomato lovers might enjoy, everyone else may want to explore other options.
Dockside poppers | Summer Lakes Boathouse | $12
Who doesn’t love a fried popper? Truly the champion of bar food, this cream cheese / bacon / artichoke hearts / jalapeños-stuffed entry into the family is no different. I thought the outside shell was crunchy without being impenetrable, and the seasoned cream cheese interior had a nice bacon flavor if not a ton of it.
The real MVP here were the artichoke hearts, which added a nice tang to the entire thing. Dip it in the tomato chili jam and it’s a fantastic State Fair bite.
The boat comes with 6 ping-pong ball-sized poppers. That’s a $2 mouthful. Worth it if you have the budget; not a tragedy to skip if you don’t.
Bucket of Chicharrones | San Felipe Tacos | $12
Cracklings are not always my favorite; they can get greasy and salty, and if you eat too many it can be a day-ender for me. These Chicharrones were a surprise for me. Light and airy, they had all the savory pork flavor with a kick of Tajin-style spices on the outside. The chipotle mayo added a nice creaminess to the salty exterior, which still made me want to finish off my water bottle.
Bang for your Buck: These Chicharrones did not skimp on the bucket. $12 gets you a snack for at least 4. I would recommend it.
When Pigs Fly | Sausage Sisters | $14
I get it, we’re at the State Fair, it needs to be on a stick. This flight of pork sausage rounds (chorizo, “Texas Two-Step Sausage”; Oktoberfest Sausage; and Italian Sausage) wrapped in puff pastry felt like it could have been in a boat. Having just four different floating sausages would have been easier from an eating perspective.
The sausages themselves had great snap, and I thought the chorizo sausage with chimichurri shined most out of the foursome. The pastry around the sausages didn’t really do anything for me.
I can’t help but shake my fist when I think that in 2016 ,10 years ago, we gasped at a $10 price tag. This dish is fine, but it hurts more when you can only get one average dish for $20, when you used to get 2 or 3.
Hmong Corndog | Union Hmong Kitchen | $16
I want to preface this with the fact that a pronto pup is $7.
I love Union Hmong Kitchen; I have sung their praises in fairs past, and I will again in the fair’s future, I am sure. This corndong looked exactly like the pronto pups on every corner, maybe even a little worse. The outside was the exact same corn slurry.
The sausage in the middle was very good. A nice, mild spiced meat with an herby kick that would have been incredible had there just been more of it, not covered in cornmeal batter.
The citrus Kua Txob sauce I would have eaten with a spoon, no questions asked.
The price per bite of sausage here was way too high. Unless you are really feeling like balling out, I would let these (corn) dogs lie.
Walking Chopped Italian Grinder | Mancini’s | $13
I think this was my favorite dish conceptually all day: it combines sliced salami, pepperoncinis, olives, artichokes, mozzarella, and Italian dressing in a layer atop a bag of Dutch Crunch Parmesan and Garlic Kettle Chips. Taking a swing at the king, a classic walking taco.
I really wanted to like this, and I think the first bite was great. It has the grinder (not the dating site) profile. Tangy and vinegar-forward, salami and creamy mozzarella.
The problem was for a chopped sandwich, it just wasn’t really chopped? I got a giant chunk of artichoke; there wasn’t enough “filling” to really cover all the chips in the bag, and with so little wet and so much dry, it was really hard to eat the full chips with a fork.
I think this was a great idea that didn’t quite make it onto the “plate”. If you do go get it, crush the chips up and mix it up well yourself; the full bites I got were delicious.
Chorizo Manchego Croquettes | Paella Depot | $12
I think these fried tubes of manchego cheese and invisible chorizo sausage would absolutely slap, as the kids say, when paired next to a steak dinner. Alone in the boat, I thought they were just fine. Manchego and lemon flavors jumped out, and the crispy/creamy pairing of a classic croquette is always nice, but I kept looking for the chorizo and found none.
I think these are a tasty bite, but for $2.40 a croquette, there needs to be chorizo, especially when it’s the headliner of the dish.
Crackling Corn Ribs | The Blue Barn | $15
I was unfamiliar with the Corn Rib, and I have been happily introduced to it thanks to The Blue Barn. It’s simple enough: fry some corn cob quarters in tempura batter, brush ‘em with seasoned butter and bacon ranch, and then sprinkle on some green onions and candied jalapeños.
While some with a more traditional Midwestern palate may want to proceed with caution, I thought the spicing was perfect. Salty, smoky, and just the right amount of heat played into the crunch of the cooked corn. The cracklings were fairly standard; they didn’t hold up to San Felipe Tacos ones.
They did have the cob in there like a bone, which makes them eat like a rib—just an FYI from a guy who tried to sink his teeth through one. At $15 it’s a hard price tag for a no-protein option, but it’s worth checking out.
Bao Belly | RC’s BBQ | $16
RC’s BBQ has been on the rise, and this year was no exception. From this list, the Bao Belly was easily the best thing I put in my mouth today.
It was a delicious Bao, a firm but pliable bun, with a huge pork belly cut, cucumbers and cilantro. It was fatty, juicy, and refreshing, and I would absolutely buy it again.
I think that at $16, it’s expensive but worth it. The dish comes with 2 Baos, enough for a good portion for one or a really solid snack for 2.
$26 BURNING A HOLE IN OUR POCKETS
By Heavy Table Staff
It’s one thing to taste and evaluate dozens upon dozens of items on someone else’s dime; it’s another entirely to spend your own hard-earned cash for a joyful day at the fair. Here’s how we’d each spend $26 on food and drink at the Fair.
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As much as I love sampling new foods with the Heavy Table crew, when it comes to my own money I stick with the tried and true. Cheese Curds from the Mouth Trap ($9) are non-negotiable. They are the platonic ideal of a cheese curd—maybe it’s the batter recipe, or maybe it’s the freshness of the curds, delivered daily from the creamery.
Another one of my go-tos is the Spiral Cut Chip from Sonny’s Fair Food ($14), which is almost worth ordering just for the novelty of watching a staffer use a power drill to transform whole potatoes into a curly mound. The potatoes are then deep-fried and served in a comically tiny tray with your choice of toppings from the self-serve condiment bar—I go with a simple sprinkle of sea salt. You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten your way through this bonanza of fried goodness.
If I have a Blue Ribbon Bargain Book in this scenario, I’d use my last $3 to buy a 16-ounce honey cream soda from the Minnesota Honey Producers Association ($3 with coupon, $6 regular price). You need that delicate sweetness to wash down all that salty fried food, and I like to hydrate with something unique to the Fair. – Stacy Brooks
What I’d spend $26 on? Look, if I’m going to the Fair, I want to eat things that are at least related to classic Fair foods. So I’m probably doing the Pumpkin Funnel Cakes at $12 and the Elote Tots for $9, and then I’ve got $5 left to I guess pay someone to let me drink a third of their Mini-Donut Beer. Also, I’ll stand near Sweet Martha’s and ask three people to let me have two cookies. One of them will say yes and so then I’ll have two cookies. That’s all the Sweet Martha’s you need, people.
Also I would vastly increase my budget by leaping in front of people, preventing them from buying the Honey Brisket Battered Potatoes from the Australian Battered Potatoes, and ask for a free-will donation after describing what I have saved them from. I estimate I would make $800 per day by doing this. – Bill Childs
Here’s what I’d get at the Fair with a $26 budget. Sausage Sisters’ Puff Daddy on a Stick ($11) is a perennial favorite of mine. The sausage is always top notch, and the puff pastry is buttery and crisp. Always dip it in mustard. Next up is Honey Ice Cream ($7) from Minnesota Honey Producers; this year’s Honey Crunch is delicious. Because I need one more sweet treat on a stick, I’ll go for a Key Lime Pie Bar ($7) dipped in chocolate at the stand right behind the Skyride entrance outside the Ag-Hort Building. The leftover dollar goes towards bus fare. — Jeanne Lakso
I love living close enough to the fairgrounds to bike there after work for “dinner” or a concert several times over the Fair’s run. In the evening, I have to forgo my absolute favorite (the Maple Cream Nitro Iced Coffee from the Farmer’s Union) but I would still stop in for their Pork Schnitzel Sandwich ($18). The change wouldn’t even cover a small beer, so I’d refill my water bottle and try to split the cost of a boat of Mouth Trap Cheese Curds with a friend or two. On the way out, I’d offer a stranger my last $1 for a Sweet Martha Cookie out of their overflowing bucket. – Sarah McGee
I can’t stop thinking about that Peri-Peri Bowl from Afro Deli ($15). So much entertainment and interest in one little package; really hard to beat that. It helps that I’m a plantain fiend. And to wash it down… well, this isn’t exactly news, but I’d drop $9.50 on a 20 oz. Blueberry Basil Lemonade at the Blue Barn. It’s unstoppable in terms of refreshing non-alcoholic Fair drinks, it just can’t be beat for being delicious and thirst-quenching. With my extra buck: a frozen bottle of water from the Rice Kristie spot near Dino’s. Not real sexy, but real, real practical on a hot day. – James Norton
I really wanted to do something like “Meh i love the oldies! I’ll use my $26 for other things!” but the Bao Belly from RC’s BBQ ($16) was good enough to recommend to my mom, so that has to count for something. I’m nothing if not a little bit of a pickle freak, so I would get the Whole Dill Pickle from Perfect Pickle ($4) and add one dollar I found off the ground and have a Fresh Squeezed Lemonade ($7) from literally any corner. Sweet, savory, and some good ol’ dill pickle for electrolytes. – Eli Radtke
Sadly, nothing on the list I wrote about not too/way too sweet items would be something I’d spend my own money on. Of the new things we tried, I’d lean toward the San Felipe Tacos Chicharrones ($12) if I had someone to share them with, and I’d probably spend the remaining $14 on beer and the $1 bottled water at Rice Kristie’s to go with them. In second place: Afro Deli’s Peri-Peri Chicken ($15), also adding beer and water. But for the chicken, it would be all mine, no sharing. After all, it doesn’t come in a bucket. – Amy Rea
THE HEAVY TABLE WRECKING CREW
Thanks to this year’s crew for eating, drinking, writing, drawing, and photographing far beyond any reasonable human limit: Stacy Brooks, Brandi Brown, Bill Childs, M.C. Cronin, Becca Dilley, Joshua Feist, Louis Livingston-Garcia, Brenda Johnson, Jeanne Lakso, Sarah McGee, James Norton, Eli Radtke, Amy Rea, Brett Sundell, and WACSO.
As always, we couldn’t do this without you, the reader, and you, the paying subscriber. Thanks for making all of this possible.
FOOTNOTES
[1] EDITOR’S NOTE: “Not-massive sausage” seems like a promising joke basket, please post a comment to this webzone with your inspired thoughts.
[2] WRITER’S NOTE: A Lexus RX 350 weighs about 64,000 ounces and costs, with luxury options, about $64,000, for a nice even dollar per ounce. These two meatballs weighed about two ounces each and cost $8 a pop, for a total of $4 an ounce.
[3] EDITOR’S NOTE: Could the term “saucy balls” inspire a poem, essay, or other such literary expression? Post a comment on this webzone with your “hot take.”
[4] WRITER’S NOTE: Hey, I was enthused about it! – James Norton
This is a genuine treat each year, and like many years, this is the way I visit the Minnesota State Fair vicariously. That First Place Peach sounds amazing. Great work, everyone.
Saucy balls
80 degree temps, rising humidity, cheese curd taco sweats, the fragrant mists of Becker County livestock, and these frayed Costco undergarments left me with
saucy
balls