Now that the fried-iest of fried food festivals is well under way, Kat Robinson at Tie Dye Travels has put together a pretty amazing Guide to Texas State Fair Food, from A-Z.
D is for Deep Fried Biscuits and Gravy, S is for Sweet Jalapeno Shrimp Corn Dogs, etc…Basically, this one’s a can’t-miss for proud American eaters.
Texas. Land of Shiner Bock, queso, beef, dry rub BBQ, and Mexican (okay, Tex-Mex) food. Truly one of my favorite places to chow down. I visited Austin and San Antonio at the end of September, partially to join the 10th Anniversary celebration of Austin City Limits, but let’s be honest, also partially to eat everything I set my eyes on.
I’ll go ahead and admit it, authentic Mexican is great but my heart truly belongs to Tex-Mex, something of which my hometown of Seattle has very little. I knew I had to take advantage of Texas while I could, so one day we headed to the Hildebrand area of San Antonio to a little…establishment…well.. fast food-ish shack imaginatively called Taco Taco.
Quite the luxurious digs, eh? No matter, everyone knows that some of the best food comes from some of the most unassuming exteriors. I took it as a good sign. Speaking of signs, inside Taco Taco there are multiple signs and banners proclaiming that they were named “Best Tacos in America” by Bon Appetit (a bit of internet research informs me this honor was bestowed in 2007). It has also garnered a fair amount of recognition from various Texas publications over the years, so I had to see if it could live up to the hype. Plus I just have a very tacky propensity for needing to try anything proclaimed the biggest, best, most famous, etc…. So I knew I had to go for it and order the taco that made Taco Taco famous: the El Taco Norteño.
It’s America’s favorite meal — the state fair! Every year, the fairs across this great land compete with each other to invent bigger, badder, greasier fair food. But after Texas stepped up its game last year with deep fried beer, this thing hit a whole ‘nother level. The 2011 state and country fair foods have been more insane — and more amazing — than ever. Here are our top 10 favorite finds.
10. Chocolate Covered Corn Dog – Orange County Fair
Could there be anything more American than dipping a hot dog in batter, deep frying it and eating it off a stick? Why yes, there could be. You could cover it in chocolate and put sprinkles on top, a treat that was found at both the OC Fair and neighboring San Diego County Fair. My Burning Kitchen has more on food at the San Diego fair. (Photo: www.myburningkitchen.com)
9. Deep Fried Kool-Aid – San Diego County Fair
In another strong showing for California’s other great fair — and originator of last year’s hash brown covered hot dog, San Diego debuts what is surely the trashiest food ever conceptualized. It’s just unclear why they didn’t wrap it in bacon. (Photo: Cuttlefish)
8. Deep Fried Butter on a Stick – Iowa State Fair
Texas may have invented deep fried butter at their own fair a few years back, but Iowa thought to put it on a stick. See, America, we can do great things when we work together. Yes, this involves frying an entire stick of butter, and yes, you simply have to watch the video for full effect.
7. Buffalo Chicken in a Flapjack – Texas State Fair
The first of several entries from the Lone Star state, this monstrosity is a chicken strip, coated in pancake batter and jalapeño bread crumbs, then deep fried and…you guessed it — eaten on a stick. (Photo: State Fair of Texas)
6. Red Velvet Funnel Cake – Florida State Fair
Funnel cake has fallen behind on the list of outrageous fair foods recently. After fried beer and fried Coke, plain old fried dough starts to look pale by comparison. But this year we saw funnel cake get a new southern fried twist that injects some new life into it…and probably injects all kinds of chemicals too. Why eat fried dough when you can eat red fried dough? (Photo: Bob B. Brown)
It’s no secret that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day—the end of the world—as so eloquently articulated (or do we mean ridiculously predicted?) by Family Radio Worldwide’s Harold Camping. Here at ES, we think the best solution to eminent annihilation is to indulge at one of our favorite foodie destinations. And if some of us survive, at least it’ll be easier to get a reservation.
10. English Pudding All Night
The stickiest way to finish up your time on Earth is at the Three Ways House Hotel in Gloucestershire, England, where they have created the Pudding Club, an “end of the world” experience where you can indulge in a tasting of no less than seven puddings, from oriental ginger to jam roly-poly, and even stay the night in a pudding-themed bedroom. Talk about going out with a bang.
9. Salt-Baked Fingerling Potatoes with Bacon Butter and Anchovy Mayo
Chef Megan Johnson at Elsewhere Restaurant in New York City has created a deceptively simple dish combining the best of all things fatty, starchy, salty and creamy—all the palette pleasers you’ll miss when forced to live on dirt and ants if you’re lucky enough to survive.
8. Mexican-Style Street Corn with Cotija Cheese and Ancho Chile Powder
Austin’s La Condesa restaurant not only serves up more than 100 varieties of blue agave tequila (an essential for pre-Judgment Day partying), but also offers this signature south-of-the-border street corn side dish. If the world really were ending soon, we’d start covering every vegetable we eat in cotija cheese and chili. (Photo: Shelly Roche)
7. East Mountain Pork Live Paté
A beautifully decadent house-made paté is accompanied by onion confit and rye toast at Mezze, a classic bistro and bar nestled in the Berkshires with views straight to heaven. (Photo: Gregory Nesbit)
6. 1949 Chevalier-Montrachet Maison Leroy
Our bomb shelter of choice would have to be the St. Regis Deer Valley’s wine vault, stocked with more than 1,000 different rare labels. Acclaimed sommelier Mark Eberwein recommends popping one of these 60-year-old whites for your last night on earth. (Photo: My Wines and More)
Remember when deviled eggs were simple, mayo-soaked apps your aunt used to make for family picnics? Not anymore. Inventive restaurant chefs and food bloggers around the country have taken good old deviled eggs to a whole new level. Here are our top 10 favorite new-school deviled eggs.
Founding Farmers restaurant in Washington, D.C. takes the yolk out of their deviled egg completely (again — is this allowed?) We’re gonna say yes, because they refill it with a mound of poached lobster meat. It’s one of four creative deviled eggs served at Founding Farmers — read the recipes for all four here.
Ribs, chicken strips, mozzarella sticks, Parmesan shrimp and breadsticks. Perhaps designed to be eaten by a group, but on many occasion consumed by a single drunken Irish fan. Between the Buns; South Bend, Indiana (Photo: BtB)
34. Marquette: Chili Cheese Atomic Dog
Spicy Vienna beef Polish hot dog fried crispy and topped with onions, tomato wedges, chili and cheese.
Many of you commented on our original story to tell us which of your favorite innovative sandwich should have been included. We chose the ten tastiest suggestions and now present an encore list: America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches, as selected by Endless Simmer readers.
10. Steak Poutine Pita — U Needa Pita — St. Catharine’s, Ontario
What could be better than poutine, Montreal’s signature street food? How about throwing that poutine — cheese curds, fries and gravy included — on a pita, so you can actually eat it while walking down the street? Add some steak and you’ve got yourself one helluva sandwich. And yes, for the sake of U Needa Pita, we’re including Canada as part of America this one time only.
9. Westside Monte Cristo — Melt Bar and Grilled — Cleveland
We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: there’s no food so good that it can’t be made better by a trip to the deep fryer. Kudos to Melt for being brave enough to test this theory out on the monte cristo breakfast sandwich — honey ham, smoked turkey, Swiss and American cheese — all battered in beer and deep fried.
8. Chacarero — La Sombra — Austin
We’re officially placing money on Chile’s signature sandwich — the chacarero — to become the next bahn mi, and La Sombra‘s version is the most sumptuous one we’ve seen yet. Shiner Bock marinated sliced hangar steak topped with green beans, avocado, tomatoes, pickled cucumbers and spicy mayo, all on a thin, toasty bolillo.
