First of all, I apologize for sending this out with one day left in the Fair. Things are still shitty at home, where I don't feel safe, and I frankly am not writing this with full focus. However, I also believe that I've been delayed in naming a Rookie Food Of The Year because, for the first time in a long time, there doesn't seem to be a consensus pick, at least not until now. There have been a lot of raves, but I am looking for unanimity (or near-unanimity) from every single website that reviews new State Fair foods, and there simply wasn't one this year. Maybe this speaks to the "Pitchforkian" scrutiny that comes with the popularity of new foods there; people declare themselves gatekeepers at something they and everybody else loves in order to put their stamp on the foods that uphold the greatness of The Minnesota State Fair. Or, this speaks to how each food simply didn't pass everyone's muster. Or, there are so many new foods that some sites simply didn't review them.
Someone has put out a spreadsheet trying to aggregate the reviews to come up with a winner. Unless a website was added, the overall winner there is the Somali fries of Oasis Grill & Hoyo Sambusas, which, I have to say, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine did not like. (She instead gave kudos to the restaurant's other new food, the sambusas.) I wanted to try it, but I didn't have time before the Atmosphere & Friends concert on the first Saturday, and this is the Midtown Global Market stall, the only place on the Fairgrounds that splits its spot with two vendors taking either the front or back half of The Great Minnesota Get-Together.
So, I am going to kind of place this by ear and give this award to something that, from every place I've seen that has reviewed it, has raved about it: The beer ice cream. Technically it's called the Soft Serve Royal Raspberry Beer, and the proprietor of LuLu's Public House seemingly invented it. Beer (in this case a sour called Berliner Weisse from Pryes Brewing) was somehow turned into a sorbet. It's served in a cone, but gosh, no kids can eat it.
I got it twice. It's a technical marvel. It looks like ice cream and it takes like beer. Also, and this is huge for me, it doesn't melt and run onto your fingers. But the taste is kind of off. I like sours, which is what this is, and this tastes like a sour, but I didn't completely enjoy it. Maybe the visual of an ice cream cone is making my mind form expectations of how what I was eating should taste like, and since it doesn't, I am a bit disappointed. But still, I liked it enough, and how the guy pulled off what he pulled off is something that should be around for years to come.
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