Every year, the State Fair of Texas comes to South Dallas to bring a grand old time to denizens of North Dallas and those from around the country who flock to see the world-famous festival. Unsurprisingly, the fair offers an assortation of greasy fried food to gorge on as you take in the sights (and smells…) of the fairgrounds. Every year, the Fair Runners give out four awards to represent the best of the best, the creme de la creme of fair food. But are these delectable concoctions worth the hype? This is what I investigated.
Best Savory Taste – Crab & Mozzarella Arancini
Cost: 20 Tickets ($20)
Located At: Texapolitan Pizza
A delightful blend of fried dough and Mediterranean flavoring, the Crab & Mozzarella Arancini was easily one of the best choices for the Savory Food award in years. The outside is nice and crispy, while the mozzarella on the inside is very gooey, but not pure liquid. The crab meat combines very well with the cheese, but the thing that really ties this dish together is the marinara sauce. The dish can be a little dry on its own, so the marinara gives it that little wetness and an extra kick of flavor it needs to be one of my all-time favorite savory dishes from the state fair. However, I do have one complaint: the price. Twenty dollars for four small bite-sized balls seems a tad overpriced. If it were ten, heck, even fifteen dollars, then it would get an even higher score.
Final Rating: 8.4/10
Most Creative – Wagyu Bacon Cheeseburger Deviled Egg Sliders
Cost: 22 Tickets ($22)
Located At: So Eggciting Deviled Eggs
I’ll start with the positives for this dish: It certainly was creative. The idea of making a miniature cheeseburger with deviled eggs for buns is certainly an intriguing prospect. The execution, however, was abysmal, and that’s putting it lightly. Firstly, the deviled eggs are as awful as burger buns. They crumble under a modicum of pressure and slip around in your hands even if you DO manage to get a stable grip on them. The wagyu, an expensive cut of beef meant to be carefully attended to, is overcooked and dry. A poor bovine was butchered for nothing. The bacon is crumbly and dry as well, and if they hadn’t put it in the name of the dish, I probably would have never noticed that it was there in the first place. The dipping sauce that the two tiny sliders come with is mediocre, and that’s enough to make it the “high point” of this dish. You would get the same amount of value from setting twenty-two dollars on fire as you would from purchasing this “meal”.
Final Rating: 1.4/10
Best Sipper Taste – Cookie Chaos Milkshake
Cost: 17 Tickets ($17)
Located At: Big Al’s Grill, Cone’d, Fryed, Bluebonnet Roadhouse BBQ & Grill, The Grove
At the price of seventeen hard-earned American dollars, this milkshake is officially the cheapest award winner from this year’s class. The milkshake itself is delightful; it’s a tasteful blend of vanilla and butterscotch flavoring, and the small garnishes and add-ins are wonderful as well. The rim is coated in a sticky layer of marshmallow fluff, which makes the drink irritating to hold, but other than that the decoration is impeccable. Unlike a lot of previous beverage award winners, which were bizarre tasting and far too avant-garde, the Cookie Chaos Milkshake is a delightful return to what made fair beverages great: It’s (relatively) large, fun-tasting, and enjoyable to look at. Probably the best award winner from this year’s fair.
Final Rating: 9.3/10
Best Sweet Taste – Chill & Thrill Delight
Cost: 18 Tickets ($18)
Located At: Tony’s Taco Shop
With the warm October weather we’re having, it’s nice to see a frozen desert top the list of sweet treats at the fair. The Chill & Thrill Delight certainly doesn’t disappoint either; it’s everything you could ask for from a frozen fair food. Frozen fruit makes up the base of the dish, which are then covered by a mound of mango ice cream shavings; finally, on top, a small helping of cherry boba balls is elementally perched. Depending on your thoughts on boba balls, this could either be a big bonus or a big detractor for you. However, I will say that I am not a big boba tea guy, but I loved their inclusion in this dish. The mango ice cream is well made, and the shaving style that they do it in is a nice change of pace from regular ice cream. The frozen fruit at the end is a great way to polish off the dish. While the dish is excellent, it does come with a hefty eighteen-dollar price tag. While not as abhorrent as some of the other entries on the list (looking at you, wagyu deviled egg sliders), it’s still a tad overpriced. Still, a great dish to round out this year’s award winners!
Final Rating: 8.9/10
That concludes our review of state fair food! This year’s class was certainly the best I’ve ever reviewed during my time here. There was a nice blend of good savory and sweet dishes to be enjoyed. Besides the one big stinker, it was an enjoyable award season. If you’re looking for a good deal on some classic fair food while you’re at the fair, the small group of food stations off to the side of the “Funway” has a lot of state fair staples available for less than ten tickets (10 USD). Happy fair season!