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Monday, March 14, 2016

We tried to eat EVERYTHING at the La-Paz Co. Fair

We just left the grounds of the La-Paz County Fair where we camped for 5 nights for $25 (no hookups). We wanted to be there so we could experience all parts of the fair. We watched a lot of animal showing. We also ate a lot of Fair food. I wanted to see if I could eat one of everything. That ended up being impossible even for 4 days of trying. Here is what I (we) ate in the order eaten.


Alligator has always been a favorite of ours anyway so this was an easy choice. It is expensive for what you get but it's very tasty. The french fries are hand cut and OK but they would be better if fried a bit longer to make them crispier. 
I gave the Deep Fried Alligator 4 stars out of 5. It was $9. The fries got 2 stars because they were too soft. They were $1 when added to a meal so what you see in the photo was $10. Very good but way too expensive for the portion size. Alligator is kind of exotic so it usually has a high price.

Next was a Corn Dog. The quintessential Fair food.
I haven't had one of these in decades and we found it to be quite good..... not good FOR us ... but good tasting.

Next was a Burrito and a (very tiny) soft Taco.
I liked the name on the vendors wagon.. "TACOS BURRITOS TACOS"... I guess they REALLY want to stress the tacos.
The soft beef taco was very good. I gave it 5 stars but I found in the burrito, the beef had a lot of grizzle. The taco had none but it was so small I probably just lucked out on the grizzle. The taco was $1.25 which is really cheap at a fair but it's obviously because of the small size. The Burrito on the other hand I rated 1 star because every other bite had a piece of grizzle I had to pull out of my mouth and throw away. The other Burrito ingredients were not that good either. The sauce tasted like beef gravy, not a good taste for a burrito. The Burrito was $6 which was a decent price, the burrito was good size but 1 star for quality so I wouldn't get it again although I might try the chicken version. I forgot to take a photo of the taco but you can probably imagine it.


Now it was time for dessert in the desert.  So we got Ice Cream Cones. All the ice cream was vanilla with the different flavors coming from different lines of flavored liquid streaking along the edges of the ice cream.

Sounds awful and it probably is but it tasted good, not the best but very refreshing. I gave the $4.75 ice cream cone 3 stars.


















Pizza is probably my favorite food but I didn't expect great pizza at a Fair vendor.
Well... I gotta say I cannot rate the pizza I got here fairly because I got the made-to-order "Viviana" portobella mushroom pepperoni pizza for $10 and then went to the beauty pageant where Ginny was and ended up being there WAY to long and I didn't feel it appropriate to eat the pizza there so I ended up having to re-heat it in the microwave which usually is not friendly to pizza.
It ended up being MEH! ok tasting but mushy... I think it was MUCH better before it got cold and re-heated so I give it 2 stars but it may very well be that it would have been 4 star (but I doubt it).

I usually don't like to buys beverages, I prefer to bring my own but I wanted to try this "Texas Twister".  I got the $5 regular and later got a $3 sugar free refill (pretty good deal).
Both were pretty good with wedges of lemons, limes and oranges in the 32 oz. cup.





































BREAKFAST BURRITO!!!!

I LOVE breakfast burritos, had one of these each of 3 mornings at the Fair. I rated it 4 stars the first day and 3 stars the other 2 days because on the first day the home fried potatoes in the burrito were crispier than the other 2 days. I liked the crispy ones best. Eggs and sausage stuffing was very good. This was my favorite Fair food of all.


Back to the Alligator place for Frog Legs and Calamari! I never had frog legs so....
Again, this exotic food is pricey but I had to try it.
OK, Frog Legs.... I'm not a fan. I rated them 1 star which may be unfair because if I liked frog legs these may have been GREAT. To me though they tasted like fishy chicken and I didn't like it at all. The Calamari was good, had it many times deep fried so I knew I'd like it. I gave it 3 stars. Frog Legs were $9, $10 with fries and the Calamari was $8, $9 with fries. But just LOOK at the photo!! THOSE FROG LEGS LOOK COOL if you're into gross looking food. AND smells and tastes fishy.... mmmmmm-NOT




Your basic Fried Dough (they call it "Frybread") and Curly Fries. The Frybread was your basic fried dough which was awesome as it always is but I only gave it 4 stars because it needed to be fried a bit longer to be crispier on the edges. $2.50 for the plain (I added the powdered sugar because you HAVE to IMHO. You can get it with a myriad of toppings which doubles the cost but I think it lessens the goodness.
The 
Curly Fries I rated 2 stars for 2 reasons. First, they were too soft, not crispy enough and second, not that curly... 8-) 
Curly fries were $7 but they use 3 whole potatoes to make it so it's a huge portion.


Time for a libation at the Rotary Club tent.
I got snagged here. I got an Amber Bock which is my usual choice in this area of Arizona due to few better choices at most of these desert bar locations. The Amber Bock is a pretty good "pizza" beer.
THEN I found out that you can't leave the Beer Tent area with the beer so I had to stay there the whole time..... until I chugged my water bottle down and poured the beer into it and then just sauntered out of there.... no one tackled me so.... YES!!!

I had a 
Gyro, 2 stars, $7. The pita was way too soft, needed to be toasted on the grill some more. The sauce was blah. Probably the worst gyro I ever had and THIS Fair food is so easy to do well.  Forgot the photo but it's a gyro and looks like a gyro. I got it at the same vendor I got the Alligator and Frog Legs.

I always wanted to get a whole ​Turkey Leg. Now I don't anymore. Leathery skin, not a good "walkaround" food. Tendons etc... You know.... TURKEY LEG!! What was I thinking? I wanted the turkey leg thats always on cartoons.... one big bone thru the middle and just tender meat all around it. Why can't turkeys get their act together?


Roasted Corn, 5 stars cost $5, Way too expensive but really good. Had husk pulled down for a handle which also made it pretty to look at. If it was cheaper, like $3, I'd have had a couple more on the other days.


The Dining Tent with plenty of seating.
We were always able to find seats.




SUMMARY:

The Fair had a good variety of offerings for this small County Fair. MANY more choices at larger County Fairs like my hometown fair, The Altamont Fair of Albany County in upstate New York (August 16 to 22, 2016).  My biggest surprise was the one vendor that had Frog Legs, Calamari, Alligator, Oysters (didn't try), Crab Cakes (I wanted to try but somehow missed it) and Clams. All deep fried which I think is required at Fairs 8-).  I had a great time with the food although after 4 days of it I am now on a cleansing fast of sorts, raw fruit, veggies and beer.... I know.... shut up.

Cost of attending the fair is considerably less than bigger fairs. The Altamont fair is $15 to $17 admission per day but that does include the rides (I'd rather they had a lower price without rides like they use to). Our 4 day stay at the La-Paz County Fair was $25 each for 4 days which is $6.25/day and the daily rate is $8/day. We also paid $25 for 5 nights parked in the big dirt lot where all the 4-H people stay in their RV's. LOTS of generators running all the time and a lot of them were the noisy construction type generators. We really don't mind them at all because our RV is pretty well insulated and we have a noise machine that creates white noise to sleep by and the generators are just a louder version of that.  It was a lot of fun being able to go back and forth from the RV to the animal shows, band concerts and beauty contests. When we got a little worn out we just went and put our feet up and watched some TV. It was full sun and it got into the mid eighties but this dry climate really does make high temperatures fairly comfortable. We just open windows and let the constant breeze blow through.  One real treat was that our camping spot was right next to the motocross course that had races for little kids up to adults most of Sat. and Sun. FRONT ROW VIEWING!!

We will definitely camp at County Fairs again.... and maybeeeee another corn dog?... Yeah.

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