Happy 4th of July! San Diego Fair: Part 1 - The Food

Happy 4th of July!!!

Although "4th of July" is an instrumental, I just had to throw it in here...it's from one of my favorite U2 albums, "The Unforgettable Fire":

And here is yet another song titled "4th of July" (from 1994's "Superunknown") by the very awesome Soundgarden:

Damn, I love Chris Cornell's double tracked voice! He's got one of the best voices in rock...before he started to suck and did a James Bond theme song (2006's "You Know My Name" from the Daniel Craig helmed "Casino Royale", gag me please). OMG, did you see that shark jump by? Ah, fond memories of finishing grad school back in the mid 90's when grunge ruled the airwaves...

And with that done with, what's more American than going to the county fair?  Last Tuesday, the San Diego Fair was free for anyone unemployed who showed their unemployment stub (thanks Bert!) and kids were free as well, so Yay!!! We also got free parking at an off-site lote, the Del Mar Horse Park...The only $$ we'd be spending today would be for food!

Buses ran every 15-20 minutes...

We got there around noon'ish...

We hadn't been to the fair since TC was a very small child, maybe when she was 2 or 3, so that' at least 2003.

I've got yer ticket right here! 

This year's fair theme was "Taste of the Fair"...

Bert and I split up to get our first hit of fried junk.  Bert went to get Deep Fried Cheese Curds at a nearby booth. I hit up this plate...

Now, today also happened to be the day the fair was offering $2 taste samples. In this case, the $2 sample was only one measly potato slice, so I opted to go for the full $7.50 plate. I had the girl put ranch dressing and nacho cheese on ours. In retrospect, I probably should have got it plain. It ended up being too gooey, but damn, it was still good!

This was another booth I went to for the Deep Fried Snickers Bar. Man, I shouldn't even have to type in "Deep Fried" because that should already be a given!

This was quite possibly one of the most disgusting things I've ever tried, the DF (Deep Fried) Snickers Bar...

And here are the DF Cheese Curds - which weren't as good as the ones we tried in Wisconsin. The cheese kind of tasted dried out and rubbery and not squeaky fresh.

Bert enjoyed the DF Snickers Bar more than I did. I didn't like the gooey innards. The batter was also greasy tasting.

Another place we hit up was the Del Mar Diner...

I was curious about the Sweet Potato Dog...

So there you have it - The sweet potato pieces were diced and mixed with corn meal batter. I wished the sweet potato wasn't as "chunky".

It was hard biting into this, but once we did, we enjoyed the spiciness of the dog itself. It had a kick to it. I only had a few bites before throwing in the towel. My stomach couldn't take all the fried stuff.

We also got the $2 taste sample of the Hash Dog, which was just a half size version. The coating wasn't that great. As you can see, it didn't really cover the dog. TC had the Hash Dog...

Later on, we got some ice cream for TC...

She had the chocolate and vanilla swirl cone; this was kind of a ripoff at $2 but we figured, we saved $$$ on parking and admission, so WTH, right?

Later on, we went to the Kiddieland section and decided that the rides were too juvenile for TC who has now graduated to the more "thrill-seeking" type rides. Since we were on this side still, we also checked out the farm gardens before going to the World of Horses which TC really enjoyed. Part  2 o will have those other pictures from the fair that da. 

We went to this booth after the World of Horses...

We wanted to try one!

Here's the potato slicer in action...

This was the $2 sample of the Tater Twist. It's basically eating one long connected potato chip on a stick. The seasoning was parmesan and garlic. The potato was nice and crispy and devoured all too quickly.

While I checked out the (wierd) Hobby Collections, TC and Bert checked out which rides she wanted to go on. She also got a Frozen Lemonade - this tasted pretty good actually.

Part 2 - More pics of other food booths plus animals and collections!

And while I'm  still here, please check out these other SD Fooblogger's posts on the fair: First of all Friend of YOSO, Cathy's post (there's also a link to part 2), Kirbie's post which include Part 1 and Part 2, as well as Darlene's insider post.