Let's All Go to the County Fair!

Swing ya partner round and round, and eat some fried foods to the groundd!

Ohhh the county fairs. American tradition at its finest. Fried foods at every turn, and fat people at every corner. Made from everything one can dream of. You ever thought eating fried butter was a good idea? What about fried spaghetti and meatballs on a stick?

Fried pickles? How about some fried beer? Alll of this I consumed and more.....except not but I wish that were true.

This past weekend, I decided to go where I'm sure every food blogger has gone before: into the depths of what really gets Americans going. Where the NRA is present and cows are being sold in competitions. Where I went head to head with a billy-goat and saw pigs get auctioned off. Where dogs went jumping into a pool of water and a baboon tried to escape the confines of his cage. I am, of course, talking about the Dutchess County Fair, located in none other than Rhinebeck in upstate NY (Chelsea Clinton was married here, for all you city folk who don't know anything else in NY). Or to me it's upstate, to the rest of NY it may not be. Regardless, this traditional fair has taken place here since 1842, and somehow withstands the changing tides and culture to still be one of the most popular in the country. Of course, this ain't got nothing on the Iowa or Minnesota State Fairs, but for what I could see, I was pretty darn impressed.

Basically, I'm going to give you a rundown of what I ate, tasted, enjoyed, saw, what have you. I ate a lot people, as in Thanksgiving portions of food. Probably the most I've ever eaten in my life, but that's what the fair is all about. Being a glutton and gaining a good 10 lbs (I miraculously gained nothing. I just weighed myself to see like a loser. This is why I eat eat eat), and eating everything in sight without having a care in the world is what going to the fair is all about. I want to go back....

I began my journey through foodie wonderland with a fresh-out-of-the-cow famous 4-H (which is some organization of young farmers....country learning) chocolate milkshake. Basically, I have no idea how I consumed anything else after this. It wasn't too thick, but also not too chocolaty. Pretty much the perfect balance for a shake, since it didn't prevent me from stuffing my face on every other  food item. I then took my shake while scouring the grounds for the most satisfyingly unhealthy yet unique food I could find. Behold: the bacon corn dog.

Should've also had the maple bacon donut dog....
 

The man who worked here had a mustache so large I almost cried and laughed at the same time. Amazingly, I didn't even notice at first that they also had a maple bacon donut dog....I am a failure to foodie culture. So basically, this was a typical corn dog but the hot dog on the inside of the cornmeal was wrapped in bacon. It wasn't the best thing I ate, but also wasn't the worst. Typical carnival food with a twist I say. Whilst consuming this monstrosity, I simultaneously ate a piece of my dad's turkey leg, some fried tempura broccoli, a Bloomin Onion (just like Outback Steakhouse), and Idaho Ribbon Fries, which I had never seen nor tasted before.

Half eaten fried goodness

I figured why not give them a shot, since I can get regular fries anywhere at anytime. They were only different because they were in spirals, and I topped them off with cheese and bacon bits. Healthiest meal in the world. No organics here folks. And that made me happier than one can imagine.

Once I finished about a pound of this food, I gave my stomach a break and walked around a bit. My dad went too hard, and bought some lime fizz (which basically tasted like lime soda....eh) and apple cider donuts, which are definitely going to be my new favorite fall treat (next to a traditional caramel apples and Pumpkin brewskis). They are seriously so delicious I ate about 3 that night and 2 more the following day. I might as well be in the pen with the pigs.

My other favorite part of this fair was the marketplace they had set up, which had so many samples to try, and was obviously necessary after my pound of food. I realized I probably should've started here and ended with everything else, but eh who's keeping track really. They had the usual jams, jellies, zips, lots of garlic based sauces (because apparently these fairgrounds also host a garlic festival...I may be back), beef jerky, and something I never had before: venison. Yes, deer meat.

Try not to think of Bambi. Please.

I had it in the form of a sausage, which apparently had no preservatives or gamey flavor, which I've heard about venison before. It was actually quite good, which scared me a bit. I expected it to be really chewy and hard to handle, but it wasn't at all. These farmers know what they're doing. Looking at Bambi reminds me of why people are vegetarians. Seriously.

As the day rolled on by, my friends and I rode the ferris wheel like true carnies and went for round 2. Because apparently, round 1 wasn't enough food. I started off with a tiny piece of the blackout cake, which is very much like a gooey, chocolaty brownie. I took another small break, and went for the Chocolate Frozen Banana with Sprinkles. I honestly don't know how I ate any of it.

Focus on the largeeee banana. Not me.

My friend then got an order or fries with cheese, and my sister and I split an order of the Polish delicacy Pierogis. Cheese and potato with onions and sour cream to be exact. We washed this all down with some more apple cider donuts and called it a night. I didn't vomit or have a stomachache, so that's good to know.

All in all, this fair was everything and more than I ever imagined it to be. If you ever find yourself stumbling upon the quaint town of Rhinebeck in late August, please attend. It is truly the unhealthy food mecca of the Hudson Valley Region. I may just become a farm girl now....no lies. NYC food trucks are good and all, but nothing compares to the home cooked delicacies of fried carnival foods. Nothing. Now who wants to come to Iowa with me next year?!

Time Out Magazine: Tacos, Tequila, and Grasshoppers? Oh My.

My friend sent me an article from The Village Voice yesterday that had a list of the 10 Worst People in NYC Restaurants. You know what Number 1 was? The Blogger. :Cue the sad, dramatic music.: Instead of fending off this title as the worst of the worst, quitting this blog, and pretending it all never happened, I went to another food event for Time Out Magazine called the NYC Taco Rally. In this lovely space in midtown, I took pictures of the food and asked a ridiculous amount of questions. I also knocked over an extreme amount of business cards because I’m a klutz. Wow, I really am the worst.

This event had it all: tacos with every type of meat and fish, margaritas, water, soda, weird spicy Mexican candy, nachos, and fried grasshoppers. WHAT!? EW. HOW COULD YOU!? I had no idea that I signed up for that, but I tried it anyways. For the sake of being the Number 1 worst person who eats in NYC, I ate fried grasshoppers and lived up to the title. I hate myself more than you do right now, I assure you.

 

In honor of this debacle, I will count down from my least to most favorite dish. Will the grasshopper taco win!? Is she that freaking insane? Read on to find out my little cherubs.

7. El Diablito Taqueria- The original local of this is in the East Village, but I don't think I'll be visiting. I'm going to be honest with y'all-this taco was so unmemorable in comparison to the others I really only know it was a corn tortilla. I don't know what the filling was, I think beef? My friend thought it was corned beef from a can and threw it out without finishing it, so. That's all there is to say about that. They did, however, have a lovely selection of Mexican candy, straight from the source. I had some corn lollipop that had a spicy red seasoning on it, and it wasn't tasty. The caramels were though, and my friend loved some mango lollipop she kept eating for the rest of the night. If all else fails with the tacos, give out interesting candy to keep the people coming. Kudos for that.

6. Toloache- The grasshopper has landed. I am not that insane because it is not even close to number one! I'm glad you all kept the faith. Or so I can only hope. So clearly this place is exquisitely Mexican in every way, because I have literally never heard of or been to a NY restaurant that served bugs. But I mean, I'd be crazier if I had. The owner is famous chef Julian Medina, who also owns Yerba Buena in the city, which I've been dying to try for a while now (but only during restaurant week). The taco itself had crab meat inside, onions, and I mean nothing else really matters since I decided to add on those optional grasshoppers as a topping. I'm not going to lie to you, I didn't hate it. The grasshoppers I mean. They added a crunchy, salty flair to the taco, and I would eat them again. WHO AM I?! Definitely not Andrew Zimmerman. Never say never.

They aren't alive, no worries.

5. Choza Taqueria- This gem of an establishment has two locations: one in the West Village, and another in the Flatiron District. The food is based upon the beachside food stands found in Northern Mexico, which I would know something about if I was more worldly and travelled there. This place had two options, and I got to try them both! Sometimes, I can be lucky. I chose for myself the vegetarian taco option, just because no other place had this and I wanted to experience it all JUST FOR YOU. Be proud of me, please. Because I obviously enjoy the meat options more. So the vegetarian option (on the right) had zucchini, squash, and mushrooms with an avocado salsa and some cheese. It was decent, but not something I would order again and again. Their signature was the carnitas taco, which had braised pork paired with a tomatillo salsa. I realized my deep love for all things pork recently, and I'm not sure whether I should be worried or happy that I can eat a pound of bacon and still want more. Regardless, this meat was divine and if I had solely based this off the carnitas, this place may be higher. But vegetables never win the race in my world.

This is the most appetizing picture I had? Yes.

4. The Bagel Store- I should probably go on some crazy rampage about how a BAGEL STORE is at a Taco Rally, since bagels and tacos are not the same food. Right? Or did someone change the matter of these two items to make them one unit? In regards to the bagel that I ate, I'm pretty sure this occurred. Located in Brooklyn (I promised myself I wouldn't mention the word "hipster" at all), this bagel store has been featured on the Food Network, which to me gives you the utmost credibility. They had 3 different bagels to choose from, including their famous bacon, egg, and cheddar cheese bagel (doesn't belong at a Taco Rally), the tex mex bagel that I consumed, and a Rainbow bagel that had margarita cream cheese. Om nom nommm, this really tasted like a taco in the form of a bagel. Job well done to them. I want to hate, but when something tastes so good, how can I resist!? Plus, I love all forms of cream cheese. Because it's a cheese, and I'm obsessed with cheeses. If that makes sense.


Taco flavored bagel with Mexicali cream cheese.

 3. Mercadito- Having a restaurant in many different locations can mean one of two things in my book: you are just that amazing that you can't possibly stick to one audience, orrr you are a chain and have semi-good to crappy food. Thankfully, Mercadito isn't of the latter. With two NY locations, one in Miami, and another in Chicago, this place is the crème de la crème of fish tacos. The Estilo Baja consisted of beer battered Mahi Mahi (I hope it's an IPA beer! Kidding...sort of), chipotle aioli, and Mexican-style coleslaw. Out of the two fishy tacos that I encountered, this one definitely passed with flying colors. I would definitely go back for more, perhaps in Miami?


Mahi Mahi-or Estilo Baja for the Espanola speakers

2. The Taco Shop-Sometimes, the addition of alcohol to anything brings up a rating. Sorry I'm not sorry. The Taco Shop was actually where I began my night, and I did not leave disappointed. They offered up two different tacos, one being Spicy Chorizo and the other being Chicken Tinga. I had the chorizo, because I'm partially Puerto Rican and love it to its core. The man of the hour was also dishing up some mini margaritas for us to try, with what was probably the cheapest brand of tequila anyone could ever purchase. But who's complaining? I ate the taco, drank my margarita, and sat in total and complete bliss. They are located in the West Village, I got their business card (without being a klutz), and I will most certainly make a triumphant return.

1. La Esquina-We've made it to number 1 without the grasshoppers!! Praisee. Since number 2 involved alcohol, number one is obviously the best because it involved alcohol AND amazing tacos. That combination is lethal. This place has two locations, one in Soho and another in Brooklyn. The taco was called the Carnitas made from pork shoulder, onions, cilantro, and salsa macha. Amazing pork wins my heart again of course. The drink was something made with cheap tequila that wasn't exactly a margarita but pretty much was. And the people working there were lovely. All around winners to me.

I feel bad that I was too busy enjoying these last two foods before thinking about photographing them. I am a failure as a blogger. But at least it maybe makes me less annoying? We'll go with that. Now I have this strong, sudden urge to go to Mexico....

Foods of New York Tours-Chelsea Market & Meatpacking District

You know what's better than eating one meal at one restaurant? Getting tasty tastings (lame attempt at alliteration that really is the same word) from a bunch of different places! I am totally on this kind of samplings kick right now, I guess like eating Tapas except I'm getting the smaller meals at a couple of venues. A couple of weeks (maybe more like months) ago, I did something that mostly only tourists do: went on a food tour in New York. This one happened to be in the Chelsea Market/Meatpacking District area. One would think that many more native New Yorkers or other locals (gotta count Long Island too) would also attend such a wonderful tour, yet, my good friend and I were the only ones from the local area. Because of this fact, I thought that I would basically just eat some free grub and learn nothing new about the area. What would I possibly learn that I didn't already know? Psh I'm not a tourist like the rest of the folks.

Essentially, I learned a lot and had a tour guide that I basically became BFF with. And met a bunch of cool people from Michigan. (Who knew they could be so awesome?) But this isn't a reflection blog, it's allll about the FOOD. Getting on with it:

The seven different places we had tastings from began in Chelsea Market, which wouldn't cha know used to be the Nabisco Company Factory? Oreo artifacts were everywhere! Also, the Food Network is filmed upstairs here. My. Heaven.

Eleni's is the first place we visited within the Chelsea Market venue and was a classic American bakery. Yes, the owner's name is really Eleni and she hails from good old California. I love that we began with dessert, because my highly-planned-ridiculously-non-spontaneous self never eats dessert before the meal. It was a very small, but highly satisfying red velvet cupcake.  I feel as if the cupcake craze that once took over NY and the world has died down a bit (especially with the popularity of the Cronut-which I have yet to try :cries:) but I've still had my fair share of these types of cupcakes. It was good, but not crazy memorable. Of course, our tour guide knew that milk was needed after the dessert. So we moved on towards getting some milk.
Ronny Brook Milk Bar is an offshoot from the farm, which I suppose meant everything came from a real farm and landed in Chelsea Market. Actually, of course it came from a real farm. Sometimes you shouldn't listen to what I say. Anyways, the cows aren't fed hormones so basically the chocolate milk we drank came straight from the utters. Now I feel grossed out, but it was definitely the best chocolate milk I've ever had. Fresh and chocolaty, yet not too heavy. I've also in the past had some type of sandwich here, and it was great so I'd go back for more.
Lucy's Whey is an American Artisinal Cheese Shop that originated in East Hampton (soo fancyyy huh) by Lucy Kazickas, who, like myself, has a passion for cheese. Om nom nom.

So first we tried some pieces of cheese, that I can't remember the names of because this was months ago, but what matters is I loved them. One was definitely cheddar though, in case that helps. Then, finally, after only eating tiny niblets of food for the last 2 stops, we had a whole half of a grilled cheese sandwich that had some fancy honey and fig inside! The bread that we had it on was from Amy's Breads, a French American Bakery that actually has many locations within NYC. The cheese mixed in with the other ingredients was A-MAZ-ING, and the bread was clearly freshly made. How do I know this? Because it didn't taste like store-bought Wonder Bread ok. There were also some olives oils within this little enclave at The Filling Station, so I obviously tasted those as well. Chocolate balsamic vinegar? Who knew it could be so tasty.
Buon Italia is  a wholesale/retail Italian specialty food shop filled with authentic Italian goods that I can't afford. Much like Eataly which deserves an entry of its own. One day, oneee day. Here we sat around a table of plenty and ate as one big, happy, nontraditonal family! We talked about kids, our futures.....no but really we all went around and said where we were from. The lovely people of this place brought us out a big frittata-quiche type dish that had mushrooms inside.

This dish left me wanting more and more and moreee. But I mostly like everything so that doesn't say much. So then we moved onwards.
Tuck Shop is an Australian eatery that specializes in meat pies, which are native to good old Aussie Land. If one has ever heard of Pie Face in the city, this place is basically the same deal. We sampled the pork and sage pie, which, unsurprisingly, I really enjoyed. I wish I was more picky sometimes, and I mean I am, but only about certain things. Food isn't really one of them. I would go to Australia just so I could eat a bunch of these every day, so there's my review.
Chelsea Market Baskets was the second to last stop in Chelsea Market before stepping outside onto the Highline. It is gourmet specialty food shop where I tried some fresh lemonade and chocolate truffles. And some salts with celery as well, which really confused me and made no sense. This was probably my least favorite venture of the tour, just because it was a cluster of random foods put together that didn't match up. My tour guide was REALLY excited for the salts though. But she was mostly excited the entire time.
Sarabeth's Bakery was the last stop (for food) before heading to good old Meatpacking District. This place is a gourmet American bakery, owned and operated by Sarabeth herself and her husband. A noticeable theme in the Chelsea Market is that every name of every place is associated with an actual person of that very name. You would think that's common for most places, yet usually I feel like they're bought out by other people and the families don't stay involved. In case anybody cared to hear my thoughts on that. So here we tried an orange apricot marmalade and I think a strawberry preserves with buttermilk biscuits. Usualllly I am not that big a fan of oranges or apricots, but I actually like this one the best out of the two. Clearly this Sarabeth knows her marmalades.
Morimoto was a surprise stop before we headed over to the Highline and learned all about the Meatpacking District, which one would think I'd know already, but she was just chock full of knowledge I never knew before. What is Morimoto, you ask? And why do you see a picture of a toilet below? Well, Masaharu Morimoto is a Japanese chef, who is best known as an Iron Chef on the Japanese TV cooking show Iron Chef and its spinoff Iron Chef America. So basically, it was pretty amazing that we could even step foot in this establishment, even if no food was served. WORLD FAMOUS. Oh, and we all used the bathroom here and had the best experiences of our lives. These toilets might have been better than all of the food combined.

BEHOLD THE HOLY GRAIL

Sorry for straying from food, but believe me, my experience was just worth it.

Macelleria was sadly the final stop on this amazing tour. While walking over the Highline (which also deserves an entry of itself for the cute eateries nearby) I learned that every sign that is brown in NYC means that you are in an historic district, while the green signs are regular places that I suppose deserve no historical merit. You would think my mind wouldn't have been blown by this fact, but it was. I was just like the people from England at this point. Also, I saw the original dock where the Titanic was supposed to be. Ya learn something new everyyy single day. Anyways, Macelleria (which means "butcher shop" in Italian) is an Italian Steak House that is probably the only not overly pretentious place left in Meatpacking. Funny that a place that used have raw, bloody meats come through its streets is now the most pretentious and over-the-top rich place in Manhattan. Here, we ate some garganelli with oxtail ragu. It was not my first time eating oxtail, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. I guess one could say oxtail tastes like chicken, but that wouldn't really be accurate. Maybe more like a hybrid between chicken and steak.

When we finished we hugged our tour guide because she touched our souls. I miss her still. I highly recommend these tours, and definitely want to try another very, very soon. Not only do you get amazing food, but you also learn new facts about this great city that you may never learn otherwise.