Critics Call The Winners and Losers of the New Fair Foods 2017

Every year a few brave souls descend on the fair as the gates are unlocked, to throw themselves on the mercy of the fried beasts armed only with comfortable shoes, fistfuls of cash, a Costco-sourced bottle of Prilosec and the dream of a new favorite food. Lucky for the world several of these brave souls have handy access to a Twitter handle and an outlet to rain down upon the world plenty of pictures and colorful descriptions of what has been eaten. The good, the bad and the impaled on a stick.

The Winners:

S'moresas from Hot Indian

Taste of Midtown Global Market International Bazaar

The Heavy Table says, “The best s’more variant at the Fair, possibly ever?”

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Mpls./ St. Paul Magazine put them at number two on her list of Top Five New Fair Foods. “Amol Dixit, owner of Hot Indian Foods, has been at the State Fair for the first half of the run for the last few years running, and he has really come to some deep and profound understandings of how to win this thing.”

Rick Nelson of the Star Tribune says, “Gooey chocolate-marshmallow filling. Kids will love.”

Minnesota State Fair

Slow Roasted Pork Mole Tamale from Tejas Express

In the Garden, north wall

“Am I even at the #MNstatefair?” Raved Dara on Twitter. “Yes, yes I am. Nice work Tejas. Mole pork tamale, black bean pineapple relish. Restaurant-y!”

Rick Nelson said, “Looks great, tastes better.”

The Heavy Table said, “The Tejas pork mole tamale wins Best Dressed at the Fair.”

The Blue Barn / Facebook

Wild Bill’s Breakfst Bake at the Blue Barn

Near Heritage Square

The Pioneer Press’ Jess Fleming declared this breakfast mixture of eggs, salsa, pickled onions, lettuce and cheese to be her favorite food of the day.

It makes sense that the Blue Barn would understand breakfast food. The building is run by Blue Plate Company. The restaurant group is known for its neighborhood restaurants with popular breakfasts like Highland Grill, Three Squares and The Freehouse (among others.)

War Pigs Brewing / Facebook

War Pigs Brewing Lazurite IPA at the Ball Park Cafe

This beer is made by Surly’s former brewer Todd Haug. The Heavy Table Wrecking crew dug it.

Jason DeRusha of WCCO and Minnesota Monthly Magazine raved, “Holy cow @WarPigsBrewing Lazurite is a fantastically juicy, grapefruity 6.8% IPA. @BallParkCafe perfect.”

Minnesota State Fair

The Losers: Save the Stomach Space

Dorito Corn at Texas Steak Out

Maybe it’s an inherent love of frilled Minnesota corn that fuels us as a state or perhaps it’s just the idea of a full frontal assault on a vegetable like lobbing it into the hot snack tray at a Holiday Station Store and finding out what sticks. No matter the unholy inspiration that brought forth the cob of corn slathered in crumbles of Doritos and drowned in Cheez Whiz, everyone can agree this dish was a gloppy mess. Heavy Table summed it up as “a sad trombone of a dish.”

Minnesota State Fair

Deep Fried Licorice

As suspected, this one was a basket of “yuck,” according to Fleming. Nelson probably didn’t finish his order, Tweeting, “Yes, deep-fried red licorice. Funny, a talker, meh.”

Minnesota State Fair

Green Mill’s Pizzarito

It’s like pizza, but without the crust... and with risotto, which apparently was a no-no for Jason DeRusha said, “I thought it was fine but the risotto was a bad idea. It should just be a pizza burrito!”

After decided she hated it, Dara said, “I can play ‘I forgot to go to the store’ at home.”

• Top Five New Fair Foods [MSPMag]
• Jess Fleming [Instagram]
• Heavy Table [WEB]
• From best to worst, 56 new State Fair foods [STRIB]
• DeRusha Eats [Twitter]
• 5 New State Fair Foods That Go Way Too Far [ETC]