What Apparently Is The 2022 Minnesota State Fair New Food Of The Year Is ...

... well, first of all, from what I have read, it appears to be a banner year for new foods at the Minnesota State Fair.  Since the Fair decided to be progressive and forward with introducing new foods, I believe that 2022 may be The Best Year Ever For New Food (And Drink too, even though there are way fewer websites that are reviewing the new drinks at the Fair -- and by the by, gosh, I miss The Growler).

Several foods received what is basically a perfect rating in at least two of the websites I went to, so that makes finding a best hard to figure out.  One tie-breaker I have decided to use is number of reviews.  That takes out what appears to be a big hit, the Tot Dog.  For some reason, one of the websites (I think it's the Pioneer Press) didn't have its reporters review it.  Unfortunately, there are two new foods that garnered unanimous commendations from all the websites, so I am leaving out the Tot Dog (although I sure want to try it!).

Between the two, I decided to use as a final tie-breaker the rankings from Beard Award-winning food critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Mpls.-St. Paul Magazine.  She has as runner-up the Pork Schnitzel Sandwich from the Farmer's Union.  These guys are usually very good, and I think their new food every year charts on Grumdahl's annual State Fair Top 5 list.

What she has first, and therefore what I will crown as The 2022 Minnesota State Fair New Food Of The Year, is from new vendor Union Hmong Kitchen and ... well, it's real name is in Hmong, and I don't know how to pronounce it and I feel really bad about that.  It's called the Mov + Nqaij, which translates to rice and meat.  The rice is the Hmong purple sticky kind.  And you can have three kinds of meat -- well, actually it's sausage or chicken thigh or tofu.  You can also have three different sauces to go with it.  There's a scallion sauce that appears to be mild and a tiger oil that from its description alone looks like it'll burn off the roof of my mouth.  I went on Saturday night and waited half an hour for the sausage with the chili oil, which is hot, and not Minnesota hot but, like, objectively hot.  I tried to power through and dip the really good sausage in it, then the rice and greens (it's described as "microherbs") in it, and I got halfway through the cup before I couldn't take it anymore.  I felt the heat in my mouth for about an hour afterward, or about halfway through the aborted concert I went to at the grandstand.  The whole dish is really good, although I want to try the other two proteins and, so help me Buddha, the other two sauces.

No matter that I'm not giving the Mov + Nqaij a perfect 10.  People who have reviewed the foods have universally praised it, and so I will honor it as The 2022 Minnesota State Fair New Food Of The Year.

(Oh, and I should add that UHK has a drink called the Dej Qab Zib, which is coconut milk and lychee syrup and garnished with, I believe, the same microherbs as in the food [which, by the way, I guess you can order in English; I said when I ordered, "I'll take the sausage with the chili oil"].  It looks beautiful, and it tastes heavenly.  It was overcast and in the seventies Saturday night, and I wish it were sunny and in the nineties with humidity, because the quenching spell upon drinking that would have permanently sated my thirst.  Honestly, I like the food, but I love the drink way more than the food.  And I'm getting it when I'm ordering the other two proteins and the other two sauces, too!)