LA County Fair

What is better than going all the way out to BFE, engage in an all-day-face-stuffing festival with fried concoctions that someone who was quite possibly stoned off his butt invented? Top that off with concerts of varying kinds of artists from the Beach Boys (and John Stamos) to Salt n Pepa, some hurl-inducing rides, bars all over the place, and you get the LA COUNTY FAIR.

I admit I used to be a huge festival/fair fanatic. I stopped having the desire to go to all of them but this year, my desire to spend a whole day dehydrating in Pomona, pounding down beers, eating fried foods that I saw on food blogs like Gourmet Pigs and Gastronomy, going on the rides, and watching some concerts came back strong, like an old passionate flame. 

After getting our first round of beers, we walk all over the fairplex to check out all the activities. Lots of animals, rides, food trucks, smoke from bbq pits, horribly ugly signage that look like the same person made it for all the vendors, and games speckle the campground. People of all ages gather to engage in funtastic eating and playing games. It's that one day in your life you get to leave all your diet worries at home and enjoy the kind of food you will never want to have outside of a fair.

Like 10 inch sausages.

Or, fried Kool-Aid.

Fried Kool-Aid

I imagined the fried kool-aid to be jello like for some reason but it's basically donut holes made with kool-aid, topped with kool-aid powder. We all liked that it's novel but we're probably not going to get these again. Now that the fried kool-aid is out of the way, we venture over to get some "real" food.

My friend gets the corn on the cob but something else catches my eye. GIANT TURKEY LEGS!

These are legit. Gigantic, impossible to eat, but so good.

I'm not even the biggest turkey freak but something about the way these are smoked makes it taste like ham, but better. After eating this turkey leg, we have to spend a few hours walking around before eating anything heavy again.

We go on a few rides and we play a few games. Some of the rides are plain scary. We, of course, choose to go on the Typhoon, a roller coaster with an immense line that lasts only a few seconds.

Then, we go on the ride that takes you all the way up and plunges you down in a free fall. I admit there is a video of me screaming my butt off but that is not going to make its way to this blog anytime soon.

All that screaming got us hungry so I get the 10 inch corn dog. I think it's going to be like the one I got at Disneyland but alas, the sausage was too skinny and the stick was too long so you have to eat around the stick, which gets annoying as hell. The outer corn bread isn't as brown as I usually like it. Perhaps a few more minutes in the fryer would have done it some good.

Update: The best corn dogs are the cowabunga corn dogs at JUICY'S. I came back a third time and had the best corn dog here, with the legit sausage (with casing and snap) battered in sweet, fried goodness. The only pic I have it this: 

After the corn dog break, we go on the ferris wheel. The sun sets and a beautiful golden hue covers the parking lot. Who would've thought the parking lot could look so cool?

Afterwards, we make our way to watch The Beach Boys perform. It's labor day weekend and the stadium is crowded. John Stamos appears and sings, plays the guitar, and drums along with them. He sings every song with them and he even sings a song from Jesse and the Rippers. For a 49 year old man, he is still smokin' especially from where we are sitting.

We end the night with deep fried twinkies, deep fried snickers, and deep fried oreos. Of these, only the deep fried oreos receive an okay from us.

It tastes like a cookies and cream flavored donut hole.

The following week, my hubz and I are back and this time, to watch Salt n Pepa. I grew up watching Salt n Pepa so I know we are going to make the trek to Pomona again. I mean besides, we didn't get to try the Maple Bacon Donut or the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich anyway. Might as well kill two birds with one stone! The best part is that we found the free concert ticket line and got to see Salt n Pepa for FREE.

Salt N Pepa kills it. They come on after Emotion and En Vogue follows. The best part is when Salt N Pepa come back on stage to perform "Whattaman" with En Vogue. The house is on fire!

After the concert, it takes us forever to find the Maple Bacon Donut vendors. It's literally way to one end of the fairgrounds, near the Blue Gate. From there, we ask around and finally find the donut.

It's like finding the holy grail. But better.

Yes, it is covering the entire plate. To give you a comparison, here it is, close to my face. Yes, it is about the size of my face.

We have to literally cut the bacon donut with our fork and knives to eat it. It's so good with the saltiness of the bacon and the sweetness from the maple flavor. The donut itself is pillowy soft. Miraculously, we don't feel like dying. Maybe it's because we didn't really eat anything before the donut. 

We get a crazy idea - since we're already eating meat with donuts, why not try the Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich?! We trek back to Chicken Charlie's and we order the Krispy Kreme jelly filled donut which houses a fried chicken patty.

I seriously think this is gross. Many people might disagree with me but the only good thing I can say about this concoction is that the sweetness of the donuts makes the chicken taste saltier. Perhaps it would have been better without the jelly. This is the definition of overkill.

My hubz gets the Fry-B Q and this is one of those ideas where frying something doesn't make things better. I love barbeque ribs but frying it makes it dry and the glaze is too sticky... perhaps we're eating the last bits of the day's food since the park is about to close. No matter...

Because I'm going back again since I get to go for free through USC. This time I'll try the fried avocado and the Indian Fry Bread.