I Spent Over $300 at the Fair, and It Was Worth It!

            Just like last year, we bought the frequent fair goer pass. It is a deal if you plan on going for more than three days, and that was my plan. We ended up going for five days, and we would have gone more if we did not have a trip planned to NYC for the final three days. Either way, I still spent over $300 at the fair, and I think it was worth it! There were some good deals to be found, but there were some purchases that felt like I overpaid.

            My first drink was the best one that I had, and I was not expecting it to be. It was also tucked away in a corner. Harvey’s Garden had a spot at the Empire Room, but they had a patio bar too, and at the back of the patio that was almost hidden, there was a slushie bar. They had two choices, a blueberry slushie or a pickle slushie. I love blueberry flavored drinks, but this is the fair, so I went with the pickle slushie, and it was amazing!! The flavor was picklely, and they even had a dill rim, which was a nice touch! I did not taste the alcohol, but the flavor alone was worth the $12 try.

            To continue the drink conversation, I must talk about Ashley Lynn Winery. It was the best deal of the fair for me, and all their drinks were also delicious. They came loaded with a new menu. They added soft serve options, and they also had a dole whip frozen margarita option. I tried all of them, and it helped because they had a passport, so for $60 we were able to get five drinks. This was a great deal, because the new drinks were $20 a piece, so by the end of it, we would have saved $40, but we got some extra deals on top of that!

            One time we went up and got two drinks, and the lady did not stamp our passport. I handed it to her when we got there, and when she handed it back, she had not stamped it. So that was two free drinks, and then we went to a different location, and Mya ordered a regular slushie. The lady said that it was not a good deal to use the passport on a regular slushie, so she gave it to us for free. So we got three free extra slushies. So for $60 we got nine drinks! An absolute steal.

            Their drinks were also special in other ways. The specialty drinks had some serious add ons. Two of them had popsicles that came with them, one was chocolate and one was strawberry. There were also a couple with candy on top like small peanut butter cups, and one of them had a Biscoff cookie on it. It was sugar overload, especially the days when I had two of those drinks in one night, but I loved it. Out of all of them though, I think the best was the dole whip margarita. It was sweet and tangy. It melted quickly and was easy to work my way through. I wish I would have had a second one of those.

            Overall, this year the food was worse than last year, that is necessarily a blanket statement, but the food I chose to get was not my favorite. The food that disappointed me the most, however, was the gators and taters. It was $21, and it was served in a small basket. The gators themselves tasted good, but they were tiny. I have had gator nuggets as an appetizer before, and those nuggets were big and juicy, this was not that. It was also served on a bed of sad French fries. Shouldn’t taters always mean tots?? I needed their sauce to get it all down, but their sauce was prepackaged sauce from the store, it was not even something special that they made. So it was just sad. I should have gotten the giant tater tot bucket.

            One of the best deals was a BBQ bucket that I got on the first day from Lawerence Perry. It was filled with French fries, baked beans, mac and cheese, coleslaw, and pulled chicken covered in BBQ sauce. The bucket had to weigh a few pounds, and my stomach definitely felt it as I walked around eating it, but fair calories don’t count because you are walking around while you eat. This was a good selection for me, because I love mixing all my food together, so what better way to do it than in a giant bucket? It felt like $20 was the price of admission for most food. Everything was $20, and sometimes it made sense, and other times, it was sad, but this bucket was worth the money. I do think we need some more $10 items so that I can try a bigger variety.

            The best food I had by far though was true fair trash. It was the Fried Hawaiian Rolls, an item that became popular from its creation at Disneyland. Once the rolls were fried, they were then covered with cinnamon sugar and drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. This basically works as the frosting for a cinnamon roll, but it differed from a cinnamon roll because the roll was perfectly crispy on the outside. On the inside, the fry oil it was cooked in got soaked up like a sponge, so it was a gooier inside contrasted with the crispy outside, and it all tasted incredible. Every time I went to the fair after having these fried rolls, I thought about getting more. It was $10 for three of them, so it was not a terrible deal. The Fair Deli had their version with their Dubai fried rolls, but it did not give me the same crisp vibes, when I got to have a small taste. It was just softer all around.

            There are a few foods/drinks that I missed that I wish I tried. I skipped out on Toss & Fire this year, and they had two pizzas that I wish I would have tried, one with mac and cheese on it and one with french fries, but I was going to NYC at the end of the fair, so I was going to eat a lot of pizza then, so I skipped it. I also wanted to get some strawberry milk, but I was gone the day they did that. I also skipped out on Elm Street Tacos this year, because their Birria Quesadilla Pizza was $25, and unlike last year, they were not offering a discount if you wore a scary movie shirt, which was disappointing, because I literally wore my new Halloween shirt to the fair just for that.

            As far as shows and music acts go, we did go to All America Rejects on the opening night, but after like five songs, we left. The speakers were not very loud, and we were not even that far away, but in general, they did not sound great. We also listened to a little bit of Scottie McCreery, who was good, but funnily enough the person who sounded the best was Jesse McCartney. I was sad that I missed Third Eye Blind, but I am not sad that I missed the massive lines for the bus after.

One show that excited me was the Corgi Races, but their microphone was also terrible, and it was hard to hear what he was saying. They did a few races, and then they were done. It was nothing special, but the corgis were cute and rode in remote control cars, so I can’t complain too much.

            This was only my second year at the fair, and I am excited for my third year. I think I experimented a little too much with the food, and next year I will hit some of the solid staples that I found the first year, and mix in a few unknowns, so that my food will be better, but I am very happy with the drinks that I had, and maybe one day I will take the time to sit and listen to a whole concert. I also love scouring Instagram and Facebook to see what everyone is trying and what deals are out there, and I can’t wait to do it again. Till next year!