Sonoma County Fair food will clog arteries but pique interest

It goes without saying: County fairs are a haven for fans of greasy deep-fried foods covered in salt or sugar.

Tasked to check out the eats offered at this year’s Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, the health-conscious wannabe in me thought it might be smarter to order a small amount of this type of fair food or go with friends or family to divide the bites.

But I went alone Thursday to the fair’s opening day.

Intent on resisting the funnel cakes, deep-fried Oreo cookies or other traditional fair fare that many people know all too well, I’d hatched an ambitious plan to control what passed through my lips: Consume at least two full-course meals, each with a side, entree, drink and dessert.

The more unusual, yet complementary food combination, the better. Basically, I was on the hunt for this year’s exotic equivalent of a bacon maple doughnut.

Spoiler alert: I was full right away and my two-meal plan failed almost immediately.

Tri-tip sandwich and lobster fries

First up were the lobster fries from Sharky’s Fish Fry.

Don’t presume they serve chunks of deep-fried lobster meat. What you actually get are french fries covered in chunks of meat with a zesty sauce on top.

A regular order costs $24, requires forks and napkins and is more than enough for one, two or three people. If you’re part of large group or have a huge appetite, you can spend a few dollars more for lobster fries in a small bucket.

I added a tri-tip sandwich from Chillin & Grillin BBQ as part of my efforts to fulfill my full-course meal plan.

The meat was tender with a smokey and salty flavor and quite tasty as far as tri-tip sandwiches go, but at the cost of $20.

Two of my colleagues were roaming the fairgrounds and I prayed they would show up and help finish the lobster fries, which were delectable but likely to engulf me in guilt.

Half the sandwich came home with me, but one colleague helped finish the fries. The other ate one fry and said she was full.

Mini pancakes with Oreo cookies

Looking for unusual food combinations, we stumbled on mini pancakes at Pepe’s Mariscos, which offered 15 pancakes with a choice of toppings for $11.

The choices included Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal with lechera, caramel and banana; Fruity Pebbles cereal with strawberries and strawberry syrup; and s’mores, which is obviously graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate syrup.

On a whim, I went with Oreo cookies, white chocolate and chunks of chocolate.

The pancakes, smaller than dollar-size, were sweet and somewhat fluffy, but the Oreos were pretty much what you would expect from the famous cookie.

I regretted not experimenting with one of those other options. Probably should have gone with the s’mores.

A colleague, meanwhile, started in on a caramel-covered waffle on a stick. He seemed less than impressed.

Cheese on a stick

OK, this one even got strange looks from the vendor and other fair attendees.

It came from Big Jim’s Dawgpound, where a cashier explained it was a stick of Velveeta cheese, deep fried in batter on a stick. The workers also seemed intrigued that I was giving it a try.

It cost $8 and seemed affordable for something that could spark conversation.

The cashier presented something that resembled a shorter, but rounder, corn dog.

One bite was enough cheese to last a lifetime. As I held it up for a photo, the cheese was not sturdy enough to hold the hot, oily batter and it slipped down the stick and burned my thumb.

I showed the cheese stick to two fair attendees sitting nearby. They seemed intrigued, but not enough to get a cheese stick themselves.

I drove back to the office with most of it in a to-go box.

Fried Twinkie

I finally got around to trying a classic fair food, but only by default.

Fried Snickers bars have always been a fair favorite but they were hard to find because only one vendor advertised it. Also, the booth hadn’t opened for the day.

Hence, my shift to the Twinkie, which has been offered at county fairs since the dawn of time.

This one cost $5 and came from Funnel Cake Express.

It was covered in powered sugar, which spilled onto my pants.

Pure sugar is exactly the thing that came to mind when I took a bite and it didn’t stand out like a Snickers, which is a wonderfully gooey mess of chocolate, caramel and peanuts.

In hindsight, with no Snickers available, I should have gone for the fried Oreo.

In closing

Nothing tasted truly bad, except for the cheese stick. But, in the end I left the fair feeling extremely guilty for my inability to resist all the junk.

County fair food can be an amazing treat if you don’t mind shelling out extra cash and committing to nonstop exercise for the week that follows.

Here’s my last word of advice: Anyone who plans to try as much fair food as possible at this year’s Sonoma County Fair may want to spread out the treats and do some walking between each meal — and bring plenty of bags for the to-go boxes.

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi