The "Heaven" of Fried Decadence... The State Fair of Texas.
A while ago, I journeyed out to The State Fair of Texas for a juvenile return to my childish youth. I had last gone to the fair back in 2004 and I was wondering if anything changed. I remembered back in 2005, there was the wild rage over "Fried Coke" and supposedly this year... there was more creative fried entries, such as the notable "Fried Latte".
I went with a modest 20 tickets at $10. The only con to the fair is that the currency is tickets. Games, food, attractions all cost tickets. It is a pain but it must tolerated to get into the spirit the event. I had an chili tamale to start my journey... It was rather tasty with savory ground beef and lightly spicy chili. Most of the "amusements" are more in the town carnival respect, something that's more of a "tourist trap" if anything. I would try one of the "famous" Fletcher's corn dogs which is still great even 2 years later.
I'd wander around the automotive show rooms, which still remain "segregated" as always. One for domestic American cars and another for import Japanese cars and some branches of domestic cars. No European cars, oddly. After wandering and gawking at cars... It'd be time for a snack again. The Fried Latte would be the next item to try. That was interesting... a cold ice cream like mixture of ground coffee beans topped on a bed of crispy strips of some sort, then covered in a whipped cream and topped with some more coffee grounds. A tasty treat, but a bit messy though... I would probably advise anyone trying it to have some sort of drink to wash the sugar down.
After some more walking around the fair grounds to explore everything... the next hint of sweet hit. Closest thing in proximity to taste: Fried Cheesecake. A simple treat, just cheesecake filling wrapped around and then deep fried. I opted out of the decadent strawberry topping with just a hit of powered sugar. That was a truly savory treat... It was not over the top like the fried latte and I was very much glad about that. As always, make sure to have a drink... it will help wash down the grease and sugar.
Much of the other "food attractions" were just stuff from some of the restaurants in town just trying to promote business. A lot of things seemed lack luster to be hawking their stuff at the fair... like southern fried chicken, burgers, or even pizza. I would try to wander some more until I could find something really out of the norm to try... My last thing on the journey was the fried cookie dough. The 2006 winner of the most creative fried treat. It's just a simple treat as well... The tasty part of it is just the crackle of the shell for the warm and gooey interior of cookie dough and chocolate chips. This is one item I will say that you NEED water or the sugar content will figuratively choke you with how rich it is.
The fair successfully displays itself as a festival of fried deliciousness, but have a nice expense dedicated to it if you want to be selfishly decadent in the rapture of taste. I went with a dear friend and sharing the expense was much less painful between the both of us. If you can go with a group of close friends, I would highly endorse that option.
