2023 MN State Fair New Foods Preview Part 2- Birthday Cake Mini Donuts through Dill Pickle Cheese Curd Taco

 

Birthday Cake Mini Donuts by Mini Donuts and Cheese Curds

Birthday cake-flavored mini donuts coated in vanilla sugar, drizzled with icing, and dusted with sugar crystals and sprinkles.

Sarah

I don’t know. I looked at this and was already annoyed. But then I thought maybe I wasn’t being fair so let me take another, closer look. Maybe they’re just regular donuts with toppings. Oh, nope. They’re b-day cake flavored. I just… it’s super rare that I have found messing with mini donuts pays off. The only time I’ve been surprised is at the White Bear Lake Farmer’s Market, where they occasionally have apple cider mini donuts. I thought those would be crap but they were surprisingly great. But every other time I’ve tried a mini donut that’s supposed to be doing something different, it’s not been good. So I am hesitant about this. But, hey, maybe this will be another surprise. I’m not against the ATTEMPT. I’m just highly dubious it will pay off. I also have no idea if this vendor is good or not. Guess we’ll find out.

 

Patrick

Hmm, I feel like we had some flavored cheese curds from here last year, but I couldn’t find anything at a glance about it.  I also feel like they were “okay”, but again I can’t confirm.  Anyways…this just sounds kind of dumb.  First off, Birthday Cake flavored things are just for children.  I find it rather unappealing and oversweet, just my opinion.  I can’t say for sure that mini donuts couldn’t be improved on, but I definitely feel like they are perfect on their own.  Plus, sprinkles?  Sprinkles are DEFINITELY for children, because they are pretty, but taste terrible.  And hey, maybe this is just geared towards kids, but I feel like you can make something exciting for kids and still have it be good enough that adults will enjoy it too.  I don’t know, maybe I’m just crapping on birthday cake flavor.  Just seems like they were going for whimsical here, and just crash landed into childish instead.  So we’ve got sweet mini donuts and they…added sugar?  A revolution.

 

Anne

Oh jebus here we go. I have OPINIONS about mini donuts. Mostly it’s that they almost always suck. You need to find the perfect combo of fresh, FRIED (not baked), light and pillowy. And apparently that’s hard to do (which idk why- if you’re selling them then at least make them good?). But also, I want to like them so I always try them.

But here we are some sort of FANCY mini donut- do you even have the OG down?? I don’t know because I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE. And now you’ve made them b-day cake flavored (hot take- birthday cake is not a great flavor OR cake), and drizzled them with icing and sprinkles. Are you going to ice to order? Or are they going to be sitting under a heat lamp getting stale and hard?

Calling it- this is going to fail and be a D. And if they really come in a plastic tote they’re gonna be $15

 

Cheese Curd Stuffed Pizza Pretzel by Green Mill

Scratch-made jumbo pizza dough pretzel, hand-twisted and stuffed with Ellsworth cheese curds, pepperoni and a Green Mill blend of Italian spices. Brushed with garlic butter and topped with diced pepperoni, herbs and parmesan cheese. Served with green mill pizza sauce.

Sarah

Wow. There is a LOT going on with this one. Cheese curds. Pretzel. Pizza. Is it too much? Maybe. I knew it was Green Mill, though, just by looking at the picture. Green Mill generally puts out very fun and delish pizza confections (as Packie would say) but sometimes they miss, so it’s hard to know about this one. I’m just not sure we need all three. Pizza pretzel? Sure. Pizza curds? Sure. Pretzel curds? Sure. All three? IDK. But then maybe the cheese curds are really just cheese stuffed in the pretzel. I think this is going to come down to the dough and how this thing is cooked. Because a pretzel is not a pizza. So we’ll see. But I’m sure the flavors and the toppings will be good because they know how to season a pizza confection. Also, though, it’s Ellsworth curds. People lose their minds about them. I think they’re Fiiiiine. I said what I said.

 

Patrick

Green Mill’s new foods almost always slap!  I am always excited when they put out something new and while they definitely do follow a trend (pizza or Italian flavors with a twist or cross with some other genre of food), I think it is a fun trend to follow and has resulted in some very good flavors.  I kind of wish this was actually pretzel dough instead of pizza dough, but that small reservation aside, stuffing it with cheese curds and peperoni sounds delicious.  Other than being shaped like a pretzel, it seems pretty much just like a shaped slice of pizza, so I’m hoping the brushed toppings and curds stuffing sets it apart and that this is as tasty as it looks.

 

Anne

Ooooh Hoooo- is this from Green Mill?? Oh it IS! Welcome back to the official new foods list Green Mill! I knew something like this had to be coming from you. Let’s see what you’re working with.

Oh you scamp, this sounds excellent. Now normally I would see words like “hand-twisted”, “Ellsworth Cheese Curds”, “Brushed”, and see the $$ go up. But this is Green Mill which is always VERY affordable so I bet $5 for this bad boy.

I do worry a smidge that this will be too crusty and not pretzel-y enough, but I am ready to find out.

 

Cheesecake Curds by Lulu’s Public House

Eli’s Cheesecake pieces covered in funnel cake batter, fried and dusted with powdered sugar and salt. Served with strawberry dipping sauce.

Sarah

Whoa whoa whoa, hold up here. At first glance I was like, ARE WE GETTING SKRIMPS? But no, they are in fact CHEESECAKE CURDS. What a delightful combination of words. And, I mean, look at that picture. LOOK AT IT! It kinda looks like those bits of funnel cake that fall off (I love those bits) so I’m already excited. And it’s from LULU’s and they have been doing us a SOLID these last few years. I’m starting to get really excited about this and I haven’t even read the details yet. Okay, I have no idea who Eli is and if his cheesecake is any good. OH SHIT! It IS funnel cake batter! Oh my god this could be amazing… deep fried, powdered sugar, strawberry dipping sauce. Okayokayokay. This could be a huge winner. This… might be the one I’m most looking forward to? Wait. It’s too early for me to say that. But I know, I just KNOW, Anne is probably losing her shit over this. She loves LuLu’s and loves fruit stuff. Though I guess idk her cheesecake thoughts.

 

Patrick

Oh Lulu you marvelous scamp.  You’ve really revolutionized desserts at the fair.  These last few years you’ve skyrocketed into my heart as a place to get some amazing sweets.  I’ve seen a lot of funnel cake variations that are just over ambitious and ultimately disappointing, but here I really feel like they’ve gotten it right!  I love cheesecake, and covering it in funnel cake batter, deep frying it, and giving me some strawberry dipping sauce is just the sort of new interpretation of cheesecake/funnel cake that I didn’t know I was looking for.  I have no doubt this will be another hit, and it only failed to make my ‘most excited for’ choice by a slim margin.   This is just the sort of thing I think makes the new foods at the state fair so exciting and gives me the thrill to keep punishing myself by eating all of them in a single day.

 

Anne

…what’s going on here, Lulu?

Wooooow I am HERE for these little bites of delight! Despite her many stumbles, when Lulu does good she does REAL good. And often her sweets are pretty durn good. I mean, sign me the eff up for these. I’m not familiar with Eli’s cheesecake but it don’t matter. Get in my mouth.

 

Chicken Momo with Tomato Chutney by Midtown Global Market MomoDosa

Blend of ground chicken, cabbage, onion, ginger and other spices steamed in a dough wrapper. Served with tomato chutney (Aug 24^th-29^th only). New Vendor

Sarah

Okay so we got some dumplings (or as we call them in our house: dumps.) I’m not a huge momo fan, mostly because I think I’ve just been underwhelmed by any that I’ve tried in the past. I’m also not a huge chicken in dumps fan because, like with sausage, I tend to find that chicken can be dry which ruins things. Also, this is in the midtown global market, which I can honestly say that we have never had anything from, no matter the vendor, which was any good at all. Hmm, did we actually have a momo from them last year? Anne would know cuz she knows all that stuff. Maybe Packie, too, since he has a good memory for foodstuffs that we eat. Who the fuck knows what I’m good for.

Oh Jesus. I just read the info and it says RIGHT THERE that it’s a new vendor. So clearly, I’m not good at reading, either. But the fact that it’s a new vendor makes me slightly more optimistic. If this wasn’t midtown global market, I might be tentatively excited for them. I’d like to say how hard can it be to screw up a dump, but, well, I’ve learned my lesson on that.

 

Patrick

Hmm…ho hum hmm.  This is…a contentious offering for me.  Midtown Global Market has a spot in the Bazaar that they split between two restaurants every year.  This a frustrating arrangement that leaves our first day new foods endeavors incomplete every year as we must wait until the latter half of the fair to try the second offering.  Add onto that fact, that despite Midtown Global Market being quite popular outside of the fair, I’ve found their offerings year after year to be disappointing.  Even when it is a food item I enjoy, their attempt at it seems to always fall short.  So here we are again.  I am an avid fan of all dumplings (or dumps as we call them in our family), and I LOVE a good momo (I almost mistyped that as “a good mom” which is both embarrassing and amusing).  Hell, these even look really good and pristine, but how much can you trust a food glamor shot?  I really hope this breaks the curse, but I’ll remain skeptical until the day of.

 

Anne

New food from a new vendor, getting the AM (beginning) half of the fair at Midtown Global Market.

You know, this seems up Packie’s alley but I am underwhelmed. Do I need more dumplings in my life? Not really. At least it sounds like this is what this restaurant specializes in, so hopefully they’ll be tasty. Looks like they come with 6, so that’s a good value at least (assuming a reasonable price point).

 

Cloud Coolers in Three Flavors by Spinning Wylde

Three choices of lemonade served with a cotton candy cloud spun onto the drinking straw: Summer Strawberry – strawberry lemonade topped with strawberry fields cotton candy; Happy Huckleberry – huckleberry lemonade topped with blackberry jam cotton candy; and Flower Power – violet lemonade topped with lavender love cotton candy.

Sarah

Oh dang! Now this is what we’re talking about! And before I even get further in this analysis, I immediately saw that this is from Spinning Wylde who just might be the BEST cotton candy vendor in the whole state so I already know this is gonna be good. Looks like we got some cotton candy on a drink? Let’s see… Oh lemonade! Excellent. Nice and refreshing. Ohhhh! I love how it’s a flavored lemonade to match a paired cotton candy! That’s super fun! I wonder how easy this is gonna be to eat. So the cotton candy is wrapped on the straw (smart) but should we try to melt the cotton candy into the drink? Or should you just drink the drink and then eat the cotton candy as a sort of flossy chaser? Unclear. But the good thing about something like this is: lemonade? Good. Cotton candy? Good. I really don’t think there’s any way to screw this up. Also, just look at it. It’s fun. It’s gonna make for a great insta pic for sure.

 

Patrick

If you’re looking for some fun and amazing flavors of cotton candy at the fair, Spinning Wylde is the place to go.  They really are a lot of fun.  Now it seems they’ve thrown their hat into the drinks ring while still keeping in step with their roots by offering three lemonade flavors and spinning cotton candy on the straw.  All of these flavors sound fun and enticing and I love that they matched each of them with complimenting cotton candy flavors.  I really want to try them all!  It is just a fun little twist added to an otherwise common and popular drink, and for that I think it works well as a new food.  I was worried it’d be hard for them to compete as a drink vendor when they are right next to Summer Lake Beverages in the North End, but according to the map they are now across the street from the 4-H building.  I hope the new locale works out, and that I don’t have to walk as far to quench my thirst.

 

Anne

Hurr you KNOW I’ve been waiting to figure out more about these since they used them as the front page pic! OMFG IT’S FROM SPINNING WYLDE SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

Sarah and Packie can we get the Huckleberry one??

See this is what I’m looking for- something that sounds excellent and yet is bananas enough for the state fair but is still in a consumable format. Spinning Wylde you have cracked the code with this. AND with the loss of Rainbow Cloud Roll (RIP 2021) there is a vacuum waiting to be filled.

 

Crispy Lutefisk Steam Bun by Shanghai Henri’s

Steamed lotus bun filled with a blend of cabbage, carrots, cilantro and yum sauce, plus Olsen Fish Company lutefisk brined in salt water for 12 hours, covered in sweet hoisin sauce, then baked and topped with sesame seeds.

Sarah

What the actual fuck? Is this for real? Like for real lutefisk. If it is…fuck me, I don’t want to eat lutefisk. When Anne and I were in high school, we were in orchestra and one of the older classmates was a hardcore swede and she would always bring lutefisk to try and make one of her friends eat it. And it smelled TERRIBLE. And right then and there I said, no. Never. Wtf wtf wtf. Why would I want to eat fermented fish at a state fair? Jesus. Okay, let me at least look at this.

God dammit. Okay, if you’re ignoring everything but the lutefisk, this sounds pretty good. I like me an Asian steam bun taco. But man… I don’t know. I don’t even like fish, and then fermented? I’m so so worried about the texture and flavor of that chunk of fish. Maybe because it’s baked it will be okay? Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. But, friends, for the first time ever, I think I’m actually legit frightened to try a new food.

 

Patrick

Bah haahaha!  What?  What?!  First, news flash, I have never partaken in lutefisk.  Yes, I know, revoke my Minnesotan card.  But I mean, come on.  If we’re being honest, the ONLY place you’ll ever get to try lutefisk is in some church basement potluck, which I don’t go to, or some backwoods restaurant offering it on their menu.  I don’t want to make my whole meal something I might find out I hate, I just want to try it, that’s all.  Well, my chance has come at last!  Albeit, not in the format I expected it to.  Lutefisk aside, this bao bun sandwich sounds tasty, with some sweet and crunchy elements.  Looking at the photo, the lutefisk actually appears…good?  Looks like it could be sticky sweet and crispy, though I’m not sure how strong those lutefisk flavors will come through.  That could be good or bad, if I try it and find the lutefisk to be palatable.  I really hope they do come through though, because I want to be able to say I tried lutefisk at last, and not left wondering “did I really, though?  Did this actually count?”  We’ll see.

 

Anne

LUTEFISK??!!! Woooooow take your shot I GUESS.

Is this…was this always going to eventually happen? Lutefisk at the MNSF? Seems both inevitable and yet surprising that it hasn’t happened before now? Did not see it coming from Shanghai Henri’s though- def feels like a Giggle’s idea tbf.

Ok real talk. I have never tried lutefisk, which seems shameful as a Minnesotan, I know. In my defense I don’t like fish, and I don’t like fermented foods or pickled foods, or their contemporaries (despite my best effort there). But also I have also always sort of wanted to try it- feels like a lapse as a Minnesotan.

For those of you not from around here, lutefisk is Nordic in origin. Fish that is cured in lye and then is rehydrated causing it to become gelatinous. It is reportedly quite mild in flavor, taking on the sauce it’s served in, with a bit of a chemical undertone. And that there’s “no need to chew as the fish slides down on its own account of its texture and toppings”…

Ok well, here we go I guess. Overall looks like a fancy fish taco and sounds great if you can get past the LUTEFISK part. I am cautiously curious.

 

Crunchy Balboa by Herbivorous Butcher

Deep-fried tortilla filled with vegan roast beef, bacon and cheese sauce, plus peppers, onions, and a hashbrown patty. Served with vegan Follow Your Heart seasoned sour cream. (Vegan)

Sarah

Okay. In theory this sounds good?  I mean, except for the peppers. Fuck them. This whole thing will just end up tasting like dumb peppers instead of anything good. But I digress. I like that it sounds crunchy. I like the hashbrown patty. Onions are good. And then we’re vegan roast beef, bacon, and cheese sauce. IDK on all of these. I mean, I hope they’re good? I want to really like this. But we have never had any luck with herbivorous butcher. I know we’re also in the minority in this as generally most people really like their food. Last year they had two new foods and we got one and it was just terrible. Really bad. But then most everyone else got the OTHER food and said it was good! So maybe we just got a bad roll of the dice? Also, though, what the heck is “follow your heart seasoned sour cream?” Is that a brand of vegan foods I’m unaware of? Or did they just decide to, like, give their dip a pretentious name or title or something? I’m in a hotel and I’m too tired to google it so I guess I’ll have to wait to see if Anne or Packie looked it up (who am I kidding? It’ll be Anne. Packie’s useless.) I guess all I can say about this one is that I really want it to be good. It’s exactly like something I’d like to eat. So just do me a favor and be good, okay?

 

Patrick

Sigh, here we go again.  I think I’ve had food from this vendor on two prior occasions (maybe three), and I have never liked it.  Their vegan meat has a funny taste to it and a strange texture.  I’ve had good plant-based meat, so don’t think that I’m just hating on this.  I just feel like the Herbivorous Butcher just doesn’t quite have their formula right.  Just my opinion, of course.  I wish I liked them, because I’d like to support this kind of effort, but I just haven’t been able to justify it.  As for this…crunch wrap?  Breakfast wrap?...it sounds fine.  All the components sound alright to me and I do like a seasoned sour cream to dip things into (assuming they were able to get their vegan sour cream to taste right).  Anyways, I’m expecting to be disappointed again, especially after I had such high hopes last year.  Until they put something out I like, they are synonymous with disappointment for me.

 

Anne

Ok what’s going on here? Oh damn- it’s from Herbivorous Butcher. UGGGGHHHHH. You know, we want to like HB but every dang time we try it we are not impressed. Last year they earned a D for Steakxorcist and yes we heard the chicken option was better but we tried what we tried and we didn’t like it. And we’ve tried it elsewhere before and didn’t like it then either.

This looks good, but I am tempering my expectations hard.

 

Dill Pickle Cheese Curd Taco by Richie’s Cheese Curd Tacos

Fried white cheddar cheese curds, sandwich stacker dill pickles, cream cheese, lettuce and raspberry chipotle sauce in a fried flour tortilla

Sarah

And we come to our first pickle selection! Cheese curd tacos FTW! Listen, I’m gonna be all hipster and tell you that we knew Cheese Curd Taco from before they were at the fair. Do not cite the deep magic to us. We were there when it was written. But anyway, cheese curd tacos are great so I’m glad they’re still at the fair doing cool stuff. Like this little scrumpsh. I like almost all of this. I am not sure about the cream cheese. That is a bit of a turn off for me. But I’m surprised by the raspberry chipotle sauce and interested to see how that ties it all together. So, I’m excited to try this and I think it will be good.

 

Patrick

YES!  They did it!  They did it you guys.  Ever since we first tried cheese curd tacos on that dark, dark year we had to forage for fair food outside the shuttered gates of the State Fair because of the dumb-demic, we’ve been saying these amazing tacos should hit the new foods list.  Well, they finally made it!  These cheese curd tacos are da bomb, and if you haven’t had them before you GOT to try them this year.  This new iteration of the classic looks like it will include some pickles, some cream cheese, and even some raspberry chipotle sauce (spicy?  Sarah, whatcha think?)  I’d try almost anything they’d throw together.  A little sketch about the cream cheese, but I’ll trust they know what they’re doing.  Them made the list, dammit!  You friggin’ did it!  I feel like we all won.

 

Anne

Well- a new cheese curd taco you say? I ain’t had a cheese curd taco I didn’t like. You know, I am hungry and this sounds great and I wish I had it in my mouth right now. Also was it always “Richie’s” cheese curd tacos? That seems new. Are we all rebranding for 2023? Or am I just not observant?

Day 3 brings us more Mini Donuts, Packie not understanding what is a fruit, and Anne having a malfunction on whether "pasta" counts "noodles".