Fair food in Des Moines: What's the best bang for your buck?
Katie AkinThough Iowa State Fair isn't happening like normal this year, you can still get your fair food fix.
Fair vendor Brenda Smith has launched Fair Food Fridays, a weekly event where she and other fair vendors sell their treats. Customers order ahead online, then pick up their favorites from vendors at a drive-thru line outside Turkey Time Concessions at 203 S.E. 34th St.
We decided to try out this one-stop shop for fair foods. We considered nine classic fair treats, assessing them on how tasty they were, how nostalgic they made us for the state fairs of years past, and whether they tasted as good outside the fairgrounds.
All the fair foods we sampled came from Smith's business, Brenda Smith Concessions; her parents' business, Turkey Time Concessions; or from guest vendor Applishus.
Here's what we found and which foods we determined are the best bang for your buck:
Corn dog
Perhaps the most classic fair food of all is the humble corn dog: a hot dog impaled on a stick, dipped in batter and served fresh from the deep fryer.
Corn dogs also are one of the easier foods to find outside of the fairgrounds. Grocery stores sell frozen versions and some restaurants have them on the kids' menu. But Fair Food Fridays delivers them fresh-fried right through your car window, providing warm, golden-brown goodness rather than freezer-aisle sogginess.
Turkey Time Concessions has the flavors of the corn dog down to a science, with a sweet batter that contrasts perfectly with the savory hot dog inside. Our only complaint was that it feels almost silly to eat a corn dog sitting down — it's a food for people strolling the midway, and with no state fair to explore, the experience had a melancholy aftertaste.
Price: $5
Vendor: Turkey Time Concessions
Fried cheese curds
Salty, creamy and bite-sized, fried cheese curds pack a punch even outside the fairgrounds.
At Turkey Time, they're served hot with a choice of ranch or marinara dipping sauces. Our resident Wisconsin native and cheese snob found that the fried cheese curds didn't need the extra flavor: the curds were sharp and squeaky, with a light coating of crisp-fried batter on the outside. For those who do like sauce, the marinara was perfect — the sweet acidity of the tomatoes contrasting with the salty curds.
Price: $6
Vendor: Turkey Time Concessions
Deep-fried Oreos
The fried Oreos were served warm and dusted with powdered sugar, a golden-brown doughy coating cradling the Oreo within. The frying process softens the cookie, giving it a cake-like consistency.
What sets fried Oreos apart is their slight savory flavor: the dough and the Oreo cookie have just enough salinity to bring the salty-sweet balance to the forefront. It's less sickly sweet than just the cookie itself, making it a more well-balanced treat.
It would probably also taste great with some milk, but Fair Food Fridays are apparently a BYOM event.
Price: $6
Vendor: Brenda Smith Concessions
Funnel cake
The funnel cake is fair food broken down to its most basic ingredients: fried dough and sugar. It's hard to go wrong, and the funnel cake from Turkey Time certainly didn't. The dough was sweet and savory, fried to crispy perfection. It was doused in powdered sugar, with plenty left on the plate for extra dipping.
We missed the State Fair experience of eating funnel cakes hot and fresh, just seconds out of the deep fryer. Though the dessert was made as we pulled up, even the few minutes between getting the food and setting up at a table made a difference. The funnel cake didn't get soggy — the outside shell of the dough remained crisp and delicious — but we missed the piping hot funnel cake of the fair.
Price: $5
Vendor: Turkey Time Concessions
Hot beef sundae
When you're in the middle of the state fair, weaving through crowds of sweaty tourists under the scorching summer sun, your first choice for lunch may not be hot beef.
We felt the same way at Fair Food Fridays as we set up in 95-degree weather. But the Hot Beef Sundae was a pleasant surprise: the warm pot roast and gravy combined with the mashed potatoes beneath to provide a comforting, savory flavor. Even in the heat, the Hot Beef Sundae was hearty and satisfying, and the most like a real meal.
While the dish itself was delicious, the Hot Beef Sundae lost some of its novelty in the translation to a non-fair context. At the State Fair, the dish is served like a bowl of ice cream: the mashed potatoes standing in as the frozen treat, the beef and gravy as the hot fudge, and a cherry tomato on top. To make it possible to hand the dish through our open car window, though, it was all mixed together in a Styrofoam container. Tasty, but not really a sundae.
Price: $8
Vendor: Turkey Time Concessions
Lemon Shake-Up
After cheese curds, turkey and an array of other salty, greasy snacks, we needed a drink!
The Lemon Shake-up from Brenda Smith Concessions is the ultimate summer drink. The fresh-squeezed juice is refreshing and ice cold. A half-lemon floats inside the cup for decoration and authenticity.
Although lemonade is a common drink, there's something special about drinking it fresh on a hot summer day. The lemon shake-up outshines any instant lemonade or bottled drink and complements the rest of the fair food perfectly.
Price: $5
Vendor: Brenda Smith Concessions
Top three bang for your buck
#3: Fresh-Cut Ribbon Taters
When it comes to quantity, fresh-cut ribbon taters from Brenda Smith Concessions are hard to beat. The fried spirals of potato spilled out of the paper carton, served in a black plastic bag.
The chips are made simply: a potato is mounted on a rotor that spins it against a blade, shaving off beautiful spud spirals. Then the whole pile is dropped into a deep fryer, sprinkled with salt and served hot.
The ribbon taters were perfect for sharing. Some were fried brown and crispy, while others stayed a little lighter and softer, allowing each eater to choose their own adventure. They were addictive, just like potato chips, and it was easy to chow down. Also, because they were fresh-fried and made of just potatoes, the ribbon taters seem lighter than a bag of commercially made chips. Maybe we're deluding ourselves, though.
Price: $7
Vendor: Brenda Smith Concessions
#2: Turkey Leg
Some fair food is a snack. A turkey leg is a feast. While it is one of the pricier options at $9, the turkey leg is big enough to fill you up and leave leftovers.
The massive turkey legs from Turkey Time concessions are juicy and savory, cooked to perfection. The skin has a nice snap to it as you bite in and tear at it — there's no way to eat this politely. And it is worlds away from a dry Thanksgiving roast.
Another essential metric for fair food? The turkey leg is perfectly holdable. Even outside the fairgrounds, it is immeasurably fun to grab and gesture with a turkey leg like a dissatisfied medieval king.
Price: $9
Vendor: Turkey Time Concessions
#1 Apple Egg Rolls
These sweet finger foods won the Best New Fair Food award in 2018, and it's no surprise why.
The Apple Egg Rolls from Applishus are served in pairs with a warm drizzle of caramel. A fried egg roll shell holds a filling of cooked apple chunks, cinnamon and plenty of sugar. The filling is perfectly flavored and proportioned, an all-American summer taste that instantly awakens nostalgia for Grandma's apple pies.
But what really takes the dessert over the top is the egg roll shell, which provides a unique crunch and a lighter flavor than a traditional pie crust. The shell also provides structure to the treat, holding it together even as you take the first bite.
As a guest vendor, Applishus will participate Aug. 14, but won't be at Fair Food Fridays every week. Grab your apple egg rolls while you can, and keep an eye on the Fair Food Fridays website to see when it's returning.
Price: $6
Vendor: Applishus
Katie Akin is a retail reporter for the Register. Reach her at kakin@registermedia.com,at 515-284-8041 or on Twitter at @katie_akin.
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