State Fair of Texas

Ahhhh, the State Fair up in Dallas, and all the fried goodness it brings! Three friends and I made a Wednesday pilgrimage to the fried food mecca..... complete with our own supply of digestive enzymes & Tums! After a donut stop in Salado at Roy T's on the journey north, here are the fried highlights.

It was about 11:30 am when we arrived, so the first thing on the agenda was the original Fletcher's Corn Dog! Yum! It should be noted that we each bought our own corn dogs, and then everything else we split four ways so we could maximize the effectiveness of trying as many fried items as possible.

Next was Fried Lemonade....I think I'd describe it more as tasty lemon cakes with lemony syrup. They were pretty tasty. 

Fried Grilled Cheese, complete with a little cup of tomato soup & potato sticks, had potential, but it was incredibly greasy on the crusts. On the right are the Fried Peaches & Cream, which was pretty darn good! It was canned peach slices, battered & fried, with whipped cream and a cup of cream on the side.

Hard to go wrong with a Tater Tornado! The only thing I semi-regret not getting this year, was the sweet potato done in similar fashion, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Had it last year, and it was great!

Wow! This was the only fruit we saw (well, saw some chocolate dipped bananas....); as in the only thing with any nutritional value what so ever, and melons are mostly water. This was a booth in the Midway with gorgeous cut melons, and they had aguas frescas. The pineapple was absolutely fantastic! REAL fruit! No corn syrup and totally refreshing. Had a sip of the lemonade one too, and it was great. 

The Fried Frito Pie won this year's award for Best Tasting new item. And you know what? It was pretty good! They take large Frito chips, top them with homemade chili (that, according to the order taker), somehow batter & deep fry them, and then serve them with  side packets of sour cream & salsa.

Then there was the Fried Beer, this year's winner for Most Creative. Well, people, take note, creative does not equal tasty. And one word for these raviolis filled with Shiner Bock beer: DISGUSTING. About the most foul thing any of us have ever tasted. Flat, stale, warm beer comes oozing out when you take a bite. They were so bitter tasting.... and the dough was like cardboard. And not sure about the "queso" they were served with. Bleah. Each of us took one bite each and were immediately revolted. But we had to try them.... Does Shiner really know their product is being used completely inappropriately??

After the beer debacle, we found the Fried Black Eyed Peas, which were just like soy nuts. Bit of an earthy, dirty taste to them. Sort of fun to eat because they were nice & crunchy, but something I'd go back for. 

 Fried Lattes were next up. This is sort of a misnomer.... there's some sort of pastry dough that's lightly fried, and then an espresso ice cream  on top, with whipped cream and a syrup. The ice cream part had nice strong coffee flavor to it, but the fried dough was.... meh.

 And with our stomachs in various stages of disarray, and with only a few food tickets left, we searched in vain for the Fried Moon Pie stand we had spotted earlier, but couldn't find it, so we settled on the classic Funnel Cake. Unfortunately, this funnel cake was a touch on the soggy side.... it had been sitting around for a bit. I don't think it really mattered, because at this point, we were all feeling dirty and greasy.

In between the various rounds of food, we saw various other fair attractions, some which warranted pictures (baby animals!) and some that did not (the auto show....sorry).

There's the annual butter sculpture. Yes, those two football players (OU & UT) are made completely out of butter. That's a refrigerated case, and during the beginning part of the fair, the artist is inside there, making butter come to life! (I am just now noticing the sign; this artist is from NY. There's no one from TX who can do this?)

And the greenhouse area with HUGE carved pumpkins!

The petting zoo is always full of ADORABLE critters! I took more pictures of them than I am posting! This little lamb was so cute.

Two joeys. The mama (or at least I am assuming the mama) was also hopping around the pen.

 I loved this camel's eyelashes.

Baby alpacas, with unfortunate hair cuts.

 Pot bellied pig!

This breed of sheep have 4 horns each! 

Mama sow and her piglets.

Of course, I couldn't help thinking that suckling pig is very, very tasty....

We stopped in West for kolaches on the way back. And after a sausage one today (the day after the fried food bonanza), I will be sticking to fresh fruits and veggies the next several days!