"Where the West is Fun" San Diego Fair 2017 - The Food

It was still quite early, the hustle and bustle in the booths had not yet begun...

Note to selves, hopefully the information booth will have THESE maps available...

because guess what? It wasn't in the program booklet...

According to the lady in guest services, they had "forgotten" to include the food map in the fair booklet this year...something Bert and I found out right away.

We wistfully watched TC and her boyfriend walk off after we took group shots by the entrance. Waaah, my baby....

I wanted a mocha freeze first thing at this booth and also because they were open at that moment, ha ha.


Not as much chocolate syrup like in the picture and the whipped cream was very flat.

Picture versus reality.  But the mocha freeze was still good!

Next stop, Roxie's...

We had the garlic battered artichokes last year so this year, we had to try the mushrooms...


The good thing about going this early in the morning is that the oil is fresh (I'm assuming that they don't reuse the old from the beginning of the day to the evening)...The batter was nice and not overly thick or heavy. The mushrooms were pretty big and meaty. I liked these much better than the artichokes.

From TC - Rainbow grilled cheese!

She bought this from one of the booths in the kids section.  She said it tasted like a regular grilled cheese and that it wasn't worth $5 but she felt COMPELLED to try it because the "child in her wanted it", ha ha.  TC will be 17 in two months. Old enough to watch a rated R movie legally.

By the way, in between all these food items was A LOT OF WALKING. A LOT! Like my feet were aching by the end of the day walking and we probably did way more than 10,000 steps.

I waited for Bert as he got our "main" meal of the late morning, the Cauliflower Sandwich at Grinders.  This version was last enjoyed in 2014 (there was another version the following year but with wierd clashing flavors)...

What was funny was while I was waiting, I heard some familiar hard rock music start to play...it was the song, "Grinder" by Judas Priest! Man, I haven't heard that song in years!

Here is a recent video of Priest performing the song (from the album"British Steel", 1984), one of my favorites.  I have to say that even now, Rob Halford's voice has still held up. He is, after all, the Metal God. The guitarists are also still sporting long hair and tight leather pants (they're not even fat or bald!). Still head banging in their 60's!

"Grinder...looking for meat!"

Ha ha, funny that the food booth would use that song.  There's so many (bad) ways you could interpret that song.  Also for some gay guys, it has another meaning because  Grindr (no "e") is also the name of a gay geosocial networking/mobile dating app (and when I say 'networking', I mean 'hooking up') so there's that connotation as well. But hey, I guess they wanted to simply use it because the song title matched the name, but I think about things too much I guess.

I'll shut up now - Here's that awesome cauliflower sandwich, one of the best things we ingested that day.



Roasted cauliflower (nice and soft), arugula, thinly sliced Granny smith apples, jack cheese,and honey on  wheat garlic bread.  A lovely mix of flavors and textures...plus ot was relatively healthy!

We've never bought alcohol at the fair before but that changed this particular day. We wanted to go to the "Into the Sunset Bar" which was conveniently next to a Chicken Charlie's booth.  The bar was featuring a blood orange flavored local brew from Mike Hess, made only for the fair.

See the banner? That's what we wanted..


Aaaand here is $23 of alcohol that really should have been only $12 tops (faaaack!) - the Hop to It blood orange  US IPA and the Rooty Tooty, which was sarsaparilla with spiced Captain Morgan.


Bert really enjoyed the IPA while I liked the rum and root beer drink.  Both were refreshing and thank goodness we already had our lunch, otherwise, this would have screwed us up. Bert thought the IPA was actually strong. The blood orange was not overly sweet or too sour (sour beers, in my opinion are too tart). He tends to favor the hoppiness of IPAs while I veer towards the sweeter drinks.

Hours later, we enjoyed some of our fruit snacks from home in the shaded confines of the garden area. Pear slices, watermelon chunks and a mix of strawberries, oranges and cucumber (with lime juice) - all very refreshing. Yes, you can bring in your own food.

This was followed by more walking and oohing and aahing over the garden projects, flower specimens and all kinds of gadgets and shit we know we would never want, but boy-do-those-hawkers-want you to buy them!

Before heading over to the kids section, we had some funnel cake. It must seem that we were both bottomless pits this day, but remember, we walked so damn much!

This is our favorite booth to get funnel cakes. I like the plain flavor (one year we got red velvet and it wasn't that great) and only with powdered sugar. Gooey toppings are a no go for me.


Here it is in all of its glory...

Devoured in a matter of minutes.

Cathy had recommended Corn in a cup, found near the Mexican Village area of the Fair.  It was neater to eat than corn on a cob. Although the corn in this was not cut from the cob, we still enjoyed this flavorful snack, simply corn with butter, cotija cheese and mayo. There was a variety of condiments to put on top (limes, chopped onions, cilantro, plus various hot sauces and Tajin)...

The booth to look for is Ricos Manjares Mosita al Estilo Sinaloa (the last three words mean, "in the style of Sinaloa", which is one of the states in Mexico).

Tajin!

And with more stuff on top...

Thanks to this array:


La Ley told me she likes this with just the corn, cheese and mayo and not anything else. The corn in a cup could have stood alone but I wanted to kick it up a bit...

We had a lot of time to kill. After debating whether to leave at 3 pm and come back for the kids later. We decided against it because we would have wasted time waiting for the bus and then going somewhere and returning, trying to find parking and then waiting again. We figured we would stay so that way we could really look at everything we wanted to without feeling rushed.

Bert was wanting someting crunchy again. Last year we tried their Chips. This year, it would be onion rings.

This was first fried food we had all day. The coating for the rings had that crumbly exterior that I like. I have a thing for texture.  Not greasy and when bit into, the onion rings did not slide out leaving you with an empty sad batter shell.

I got a better shot of the relocated Don Diego wall when we left to get our jackets in the car.  It took awhile for a bus to come and even longer to board the returning bus.


We had one last item before calling it a day, this thing here, bottom left corner. Bert's choice.

An here it is...After taking a few bites, we couldn't discern the peanut butter flavor. In fact, it was missing entirely. We thought the lb would be infused into the meatball itself but upon closer inspection, noticed the photo on the display showed pb squiggled on top.



Above, the PB less fried meatball skewer. The meatballs themselves were a generous size and were pretty good. The powdered sugar I could have done without though.

Bert went back to ask them about the lack of pb on the meatballs. As he was waiting, the girl apologized and gave him a brand new stick. We didn't really expect that since all we wanted was just the pb added on top (just as it is depicted on their board). No, they gave us a new one and put PB on our bitten one.  Holy hell, this was a lot of meatballs for two people to handle...

We ended up texting TC so we could meet her and her BF. They were right around the corner from us, enjoying this...chicken in a pineapple shell (which TC really enjoyed last year).

TC took a few bites of the meatballs while her BF nearly polished it off, which was fine with us because we could barely manage finishing ours.  I'm glad our extra skewer didn't go to waste!

It was really cool seeing the fair at night, a first for us...

Until next year's fair!

Last year's food post for the SD Fair:
"Mad About the Fair" - SD Fair 2016 - The Food June 2016

Oh, an added bonus was hearing part of the Darius Rucker concert for free. In the exhibit area for Fine Arts was the stage where he was performing. We couldn't see him but we could hear him clearly. The area to the seating was guarded so that only ticket holders could go through.  I happened to hear him sing "Only Wanna Be With You", one of his hits from when he was still frontman for Hootie and the Blowfish.


We had a blast trying a few new foods plus the drinks. There is still time to enjoy one of the largest fairs in the nation (the 6th largest!). If you are an educator, you can hopefully still get up to four $5 vouchers at Mission Federal Ctedit Union for tickets for this last Friday, June 30th (the educator dates only ran on Fridays). Better than paying $18 per ticket.

Looking forward to next year's fair theme and also for Cathy's forthcoming fair post once "it's over"...

Hope you can all take part in this San Diego summer tradition!