san diego county fair + bacon fest giveaway

Ahh, summer! Longer days, warmer nights, corn on the cob, fresh seasonal fruits (I’m looking at you cantelope and watermelon)… what isn’t there to love about summer? There’s nothing that says summer to me like a visit to the Del Mar Fair San Diego County Fair (yeah, I still call it Del Mar Fair). I went to the fair last Friday with my friend, Laura, who got free Teacher Appreciation Day tickets (thanks, Laura!). I didn’t go “all out” like I normally would at the fair mostly because they didn’t have all of the things I wanted to try (insert pouting here).

In addition to my recap below I’m also giving away passes to the Big Bite Bacon Fest on July 5th! You may skip this fair recap business if you just want to enter the contest!

The Fab Fair - San Diego County Fair

First thing Laura and I did was wander around in the Beatles exhibit. There were a lot of great photos of the four of them before their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show plus photos of them just goofing around on the beach, in Central Park, etc. all before they got really famous and were still able to go out without being completely mobbed by fans.

There was also a large wishing tree and I put a wish on a tag. I think my wish was “for everyone to feel loved” since I’m pretty happy with the state of my life at the moment.

Wishing Tree - Clean Wish

This wish made me chuckle a little. Me too, kid. Me too.


Hand Rolled Pretzels - booth at the San Diego County Fair

Turkey Legs & more at Bacon A-Fair - San Diego County Fair

After exploring the Beatles tribute, Laura and I decided on what our first items would be. I wasn’t into a lot of the “new” items they were featuring this year. Triple krispy kreme cheeseburger? Pass. Bacon wrapped churros that I heard were soggy? Pass. Kirbie said the crispy chicken skins were not crispy. My mom makes chicken skins, too, so pass. What I did want to try was a new item called a Polish Gouda Dog. THAT sounded like something I could enjoy! Polish sausage with cheese in it?! Sign me UP! We wandered over to the California Cheese Co. booth… only to find it wasn’t on the menu. What is this treachery!? I asked someone working at the booth and they just sadly shook their head and said, “Sorry, we don’t have that.” I’m guessing it didn’t work out and they weren’t able to stock the product to sell. What a bummer!

I had seen someone on Twitter had tried some TastiChips – freshly made potato chips – and Laura and I decided to try that as our side dish along with this:

Cauliflower Sandwich - San Diego County Fair

[cauliflower sandwich – $9.50]

A Cauliflower Sandwich from Grinders! Now… a cauliflower sandwich all by itself did not really sound all that appealing to me, but I had seen that CC had tried it and spoke highly of it so I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m glad I did because this sandwich turned out to be surprisingly delicious! And I didn’t feel totally gross after eating it which is always a plus. The sandwich has roasted cauliflower in it, plus arugula (which luckily didn’t have it’s usual weird-o peppery taste), melted cheese, apple slices and garlic. It was on a sweet honey wheat bread that was toasted and buttered. The whole thing together made for a tasty bite. The cheese is melted and gooey, the cauliflower is roasted and soft (making it easy to bite through) and the bit of apple gives it a little crunch and sweetness. The garlic helps bring it all together and the sweet-ish bread just makes the whole thing a winner. I really, really liked this sandwich!

TastiChips - San Diego County Fair

[tastichips – regular size with additional ranch dressing]

On the other hand, the TastiChips were sadly not as tasty as I was hoping they would be. We got a regular sized order which was still pretty big for the two of us to share. I can’t remember the exact pricing – I think it was $6-7 for the regular plus $1 for the ranch dressing (they also had nacho cheese sauce). They did look freshly cut to order but they were not fried long enough! Some of the chips were semi-soft and chewy while a few chips were nice and crunchy. We were hoping for all crunchy chips and instead got mostly limp, partly cooked chips… sorry, but that is not tasty to me at all. Laura was a trooper and ate more of the chips than I did. I just didn’t care for the texture of a limp potato that much. The chips are also unseasoned when delivered to you – which is good if you’re watching your intake of salt but we’re at the fair! Can’t you just season them for me?

country-singer-girl-suzanne-harper

We sat in the grass and watched part of a Singer Songwriter competition with a few local singers. This girl, Suzanne Harper, was very country.

non-country-girl-christine-parker

This girl, Christine Parker, was not country! I liked her music a little better. A little musical entertainment with our meal was very enjoyable.

After our shared meal, we went over to check out the Woodworking exhibit which is always one of my favorite areas to check out. I’m always amazed by people’s ability to turn wood into something beautiful, like this goregous looking table:

awesome-wood-table

jaguar-on-wood

and this very cool Jaguar picture. So rad!

After wood stuff, we headed over to check out the free concert which was Smokey Robinson.

smokey-robinson-blue-sequins

Smokey is rocking it in the blue sequined jacket! I knew a few more of his songs that I thought I did but his newer stuff I was not really digging. But that’s okay.

We stayed for about an hour listening to Smokey before wandering around the fair a bit more.

san-diego-fair-lights-at-night

mexican-funnel-cake-booth

biggys-meat-market

We checked out a bit of Bing Crosby Hall and tried to find this other item…. Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzels. I was imagining a peanut butter filled soft pretzel with a chocolate drizzle and I got excited thinking about it… but our search was in vain! It was not at the Mexican Funnel booth or any of the “Sippers” booths (which I assumed was just the drink carts, but I didn’t ask). No pretzels for us! What!

Roxy's Restaurant at the San Diego County Fair

roxys-menu

I went ahead and wandered over to Roxy’s for one of my usual items.

Fried Mushrooms - San Diego County Fair

[garlic battered mushrooms / $7.75]

The fried mushrooms! It looks like they batter the whole stick now and threw it all into the fryer. I asked if they could do a stick with half mushroom and half artichoke so Laura could share with me but the girl said no. We sure didn’t want the $15 combo and Laura doesn’t like mushrooms.

The mushrooms were good… but not as good as it has been in the past. They seemed like they should have been fried a little longer or at another temperature since the outside wasn’t as crispy as I remember it. The mushrooms were still very juicy and flavorful and I still love the ranch dipping sauce it comes with it.

We looked at pretty flowers while I ate my almost-too-hot-to-eat mushrooms.

bowls-of-roses

pretty-landscape

dr-suess-looking-flowers

flower-arrangement

ketchup-and-mustard-rose

This rose was my favorite – it was called “Ketchup and Mustard” since it’s yellow in the middle and red on the tips! So pretty.

We ended the night by getting dessert.

country-fair-cinnamon-rolls-booth

cinnamon-roll-sundae

[cinnamon roll sundae / $8-ish range (yeah, I forgot the price)]

Since we couldn’t find that darn pretzel, we opted to go for the Cinnamon Roll Sundae! This isn’t a new item, but it’s new to me since I had never heard nor seen it before. They use one of the cinnamon rolls and they put ice cream in the middle and top it with whipped cream, walnuts and a cherry. They kind of hide the ice cream under all of the whipped cream so you can’t really see it. It’s not a ton of ice cream, either. Because they add the ice cream, the traditional cream cheese frosting is not added to the roll. It was nice and gooey and had plenty of cinnamon flavor but I think I’d rather have it with the cream cheese frosting! Laura liked it with the ice cream, she felt it cut down on the sweetness/richness overall.

Big Bite Bacon Fest

Last year was the inaugural Big Bite Bacon Fest which I had the pleasure to attend so I was pretty excited to be invited back for the second year of the event taking place again at the San Diego County Fair on July 5th, 2014. I think Jake and I will employ the tactics we learned this year from Lynn and bring some tupperware with us for the “leftover” samples! I think that’ll be a much, much better plan so I don’t have to feel like a waddling penguin afterwards…

A few photos from last year to whet your appetite:

chicken-fried-bacon

[chicken fried bacon]

bacon-egg-potato-tot

[bacon egg potato tot]

coops-bacon-candy-ribs-fries

[ribs and candied bacon]

I’ve got a pair of tickets to giveaway again to one lucky winner for this year’s Big Bite Bacon Fest. The winner + a guest will be able to get an unlimited amount of bacony food samples plus 10 (3 oz) beer samples to wash down all of the bacon goodness.

Want to win? Here’s how you can enter!

First of all tell me: what’s your favorite bacon-related food to eat? Enter it in the PromoSimple box below! There are additional ways to enter once you fill in your information. Please note: honesty counts here! Any entries to be found invalid (like, you didn’t REALLY follow me on Facebook) will disqualify ALL of your entries. Just a head’s up.

This contest is open to residents of the United States who can find their way to Del Mar at the Will Call booth for their ticket pickup. Big Bite Bacon Fest tickets include fair admission. Parking is not including. Contest runs from now until July 1st at midnight. Winner will be contacted via email. If no response within 48 hours a new winner will be selected. Good luck!


8 thoughts on “san diego county fair + bacon fest giveaway

  1. Perfect timing Mary! We’re going to the fair tonight and your post makes me really excited to go! Compared to the bacon and barrels event I went to, is there more food at the big bite bacon fest?

    1. Hi Lynn – Looking back at your post I would say yes, there was a lot more food last year at the Bacon Fest. We didn’t even sample everything! There’s a list of featured chefs/restaurants on their website but I remember there also being a lot of product samples as well. There is also no wine at this event but there were a few bacon related drinks that a few places made. The VIP experience is nice since you get in an hour early, too. I’m hoping for lots of tasty bacon samples this year! Hope you have fun at the fair tonight!!

  2. I hate fairs, but that is totally rad that you are giving away tickets! I used to love them when I was a kid though….the cotton candy, the funnel cake, the rides….they were so much fun. Now it’s like…eeek…the crowd, the noise, too much money on junk food..no thanks. Sign of being old lol. But I can see it being fun and bringing back childhood memories, and great for people that love fried anything.

    1. Hi Miss Kim – Yeah, going to the fair now is a different experience for me. I don’t go on the rides anymore and I don’t eat funnel cake and cotton candy, haha! There are a few tried and true favorites and I like looking at the collections of things. Maybe when Jake and I go again next week I’ll look at the animals and hopefully catch one of the baby pig races 🙂 I almost wanted to try the deep fried birthday cake but decided I would pass on that… haha!

  3. I wish I had tried that cauliflower sandwich! I read about it, didn’t sound appealing, but then read CC’s post and was really curious. Oh well, maybe next time!

  4. Hi Mary – I’m just commenting and not entering the contest since I already went to the fair. 🙂

    Great highlights posts! Fail for that Polish Gouda dog though. Boo. I’m really glad that you liked that cauliflower sandwich. At first I was skeptical because cauliflower by itself doesn’t sound so appealing, but with all the other flavors and textures going on, it was pretty $#%@ good!

    I like your photos of the flowers. My favorite (which I skipped over by mistake) is the Dahlia blossoms. I think we walked past it or something, but those flowers are always so beautiful. Too bad I have a ‘black thumb’. I can’t grow anything, haha. The crafts/hobbies are always so cool. I admire that people can create gorgeous things through woodworking, knitting, baking, or what have you.

    The Beatles exhibit was excellent as well. It was neat to see them so relaxed on the beach during their first tour, although I’ve seen (in the dvd “Anthology”) that they were pretty much holed up in their hotel rooms a lot and couldn’t really enjoy the cities they were visiting.

    1. Hi CC – I was afraid the cauliflower sandwich would be weird but it did work with all the flavors and all that yummy cheese! Thanks for the recommendation!

      I have never really tried to grow anything but I don’t think my parents green thumb had passed down to me. I enjoy looking at it though!
      Maybe next year I’ll feel like entering a baking contest again. It was fun the one time I did it!

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