Minnesota State Fair reviews: The best and worst new foods
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The Buffalo Cheese Curd & Chicken Tacos (left) and Fried Bee-Nana Pie were big hits. Photos: Nick Halter/Axios and Audrey Kennedy/Axios
The deep-fried ranch dressing at Lulu's Public House was actually pretty good.
- We're serious.
Driving the heartburn: The Axios Twin Cities crew — with the help of special guest Claire Reilly from our San Francisco team — tried almost all of the 33 new foods and six new vendors on Thursday.
Why it matters: We filled out bellies with way too much sugar, grease, and cheese to provide you with enough intel to make wise choices during your visit to the Minnesota State Fair.
The favorites
🥧 Fried Bee-Nana Pie from Sabino's Pizza Pies. This was close to perfection. A battered and deep-fried pie filled with honey, banana, and cookie butter and topped with ice cream.
🌯 Quesabirria Taquitos from El Burrito Mercado. The beloved St. Paul restaurant's entrance into the State Fair got off on the right foot. These deep-fried rolled tacos were, as Claire noted, as good as the California Mexican food she eats.
🥓 Ba'bacon Sour Cream + Onion Hummus from Baba's. It's Baba's, so you know the hummus is going to be good. But this bowl was bursting with flavor. Even after a long day of eating, we gobbled it up.
🌮 Buffalo Cheese Curd & Chicken Tacos from Richie's: A perfect mix of heat, crunch, protein, and an old favorite, the almighty curd.
Solid
🍗 Crab Boil Wings from Soul Bowl: Multiple people eyed with jealousy as we dug into the hefty tray of hot-sauce marinated wings, corn, sausage, and potatoes — a proper low-country boil done well.
🍔 Swedish 'Sota Sliders from Hamline Church Dining Hall: This is Minnesota cuisine at its best — cranberry-wild rice meatball patties with dill Havarti cheese and lingonberries.
🍛 Koshari from Kosharina Egyptian Cuisine: This new vendor's bowl of rice, pasta, chickpeas, lentils, tomato sauce with garlicky vinegar sauce, and your choice of protein seemed out of place at the State Fair, but it's something we would eat for lunch on the regular.
🧄 Deep fried ranch bites from Lulu's Public House; They're bound to be polarizing, but we liked how the ranch had a cream cheese-like consistency.
Avoid
🥔 Ham and Pickle Roll Up on a Potato Skin at Route 66 Roadhouse Chicken: This a Super Bowl party appetizer gone wrong.
🍨 Lady's Slipper Marble Sundae from Bridgeman's: Way too much cream. This is a sugar bomb.
🥪 Turkey Kristo from Minnesota Farmers Union Coffee Shop: The grease didn't just run down Claire's arm, it pooled on top of her shoes.