Chile Relleno Dog
edges and topped with butter, cinnamon, sugar and caramel applied in surprisingly restrained fashion.
Price: $8.
Deep-Fried Tamale on a Stick
Stand: Carne Cafe Taco Stand. Description: With the caveat that “good” is a relative term, here’s an item that manages to combine two fairground food tropes into something that’s reasonably tasty. Little more than chile-laced tamale dough pressed around a stick and chucked into the deep fryer, this fellow puts a lightly crisped, caramelized shell on a tender tamale, a practice that — to be frank — I’d kind of like to see explored in a less makeshift kitchen.
Price: $7.
Navajo Taco
Stand: Description: Price: $11. Stand: Big Bri’s.
Description: Chile relleno on a bun? Hot dog topped with cheese and charred poblanos? Nothing so exciting. It’s a corn dog with a little bit of cheese and green chile mixed into the batter. But if you’re down with corn dogs, this is a decent upgrade to the fairground classic once you get past the crushing disappointment.
Price: $6.
Fish Taco
Stand: Baja Lobster.
Description: Baja Lobster’s corn-batter encrusted “Lobster Dawg” wasn’t available, and while I’d like to classify that as an act of mercy, the truth is that they just weren’t quite set up yet. Still, this serendipitously led me to their surprisingly decent fish taco, a griddled corn tortilla wrapped around a freshly battered chunk of fried fish, topped with shredded cabbage and a drizzle of chipotle-spiked crema.
Price: $10.
THE BAD
Description: Like many state fair disasters, this isn’t so much an issue of concept as it is of execution. Deep- fried avocado is hardly novel, and pretty darn tasty when done well. But razor-thin slivers of the stuff encased in a greasy, overcooked batter shell with a blend of ranch dressing and jarred salsa to dip is an even more egregious waste of a perfectly good avocado than topping a Chipotle bowl with guacamole.
Price: $7.
Deep-Fried Philly Cheese Steak
Stand: Sunset Grill.
Description: Already a gut bomb of legendary proportions, it would be tough to come up with a food less in need of further greasification than a Philly cheese steak. But by golly, that isn’t going to stop the state fair from trying. I might even be able to look past the absurdity of this cheese steak in chimichanga form if the filling were something tasty rather than a mess of industrial slivered beef, mystery cheese and mushy onions. I’ll let you guess which version I got.
Price: $11.
Tater Dog
Stand: Spud Ranch.
Description: Deep-fried potatoes are awesome. Deep-fried hot dogs are pretty
good, too. Coil the former around the latter, skewer it on a stick and you should have yourself a license to print money. Unless, of course, your spud spindle is flabby and grease-logged without the slightest hint of crispness. That would sure be a shame.
Price: $10.
Pasta with Meatballs
Stand: Sunset Grill. Description: This is a school cafeteria flashback of the worst kind. Even setting aside the fact that I’m pretty sure garlic took out a restraining order on the garlic bread, overcooked spaghetti, candy sweet sauce and freezer-grade meatballs beg the question: Who on earth eats spaghetti and meatballs at the state fair? Answer: Me, apparently.
Price: $8.
Pineapple Drink
Stand: Drink A Fruit From The Fruit.
Description: What should have been a total slam dunk on a hot Arizona day — a simple blended fruit drink served in its husk of origin — was torpedoed by the lack of fruit in it. I don’t know who got my pineapple’s innards, but the frothy, watery concoction that barely tasted of pineapple would suggest it wasn’t me.
Price: $10.
THE FLAMIN’ HOT
Shack.