What’s Cooking at the 2015 LA County Fair?!

Last weekend the LA County Fair opened to much fanfare. Fun rides, toe-tapping music & food, glorious food can be found at the Fairplex in Pomona! Usually when you think of fair food, the first thing that comes to mind is that this is the place where anything & everything gets dipped in batter & fried!

At the Chicken Charlie booth, you’ll find a wide variety of food items that are deep fried.

One such item is the newly created deep fried SlimFast bar. Chicken Charlie came up with this & wanted to debut it at the LA County Fair. You can see the chocolate snack bar within the fried dough. A friend of mine said that it reminded her of the deep fried Snickers bar that she gets at the fair every year.

Another food combo that seems like an odd pairing is Chicken Charlie’s Peanut Butter Pickle. You can definitely taste the dill pickle & the sweetness of the peanut butter. It was interesting to say the least. I can now check that off my bucket list of fair food.

My personal favorite fried item at Chicken Charlie’s is their fried guacamole! I know what you are thinking – this is an appetizer best served cold…how (or why) would you deep fry it? It actually tasted quite delicious! It looks like a donut hole but when you bite into it, you taste the avocado & onions. Mmmm…so good – even 4 out of 5 bloggers seated at my table agreed. (Ok, I totally made up that statistic but several of my blogger friends did like it.)

There is one item on Chicken Charlie’s menu that will surprise you & that is their Pineapple Express Pineapple Bowl. The pineapple shell makes a beautiful presentation & it contains a layer of rice at the bottom & chunks of chicken coated with a “special sauce.” It tasted like a light teriyaki sauce. I would have preferred even more sauce on the chicken but that’s just my personal preference.

While I was munching on the entree, even the Chicken Charlie employee had admitted to me that this is probably the healthiest thing at the LA County Fair. While that statement may be true, there was another booth down the way that had some healthy choices as well.

Twisted Sage Cafe & Catering is located in the nearby town of San Dimas. At their booth, the focus is on food that uses only fresh ingredients. I enjoyed Twisted Sage’s Granny Smith Apple & Goat Cheese Salad. However my favorite item is their Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich! The curry chicken with fresh grapes & tossed in an aioli sauce, served on a croissant – yummy!

One thing you’ll need after tasting all of this food is something to wash it down. Cue the refreshing Cucumber Lemonade from Ricco’s Michelaguas! The drink is made with fresh cucumber (I could taste the bits of cucumbers), lemonade & sweetened with agave. The rim of the cup is lined with tamarind & chili pepper.

Last but not least was my favorite dessert at the fair & it came from the Chuckwagon booth. It may be coated with cinnamon & sugar, but in my mind these apple slices still count as one of my fruit servings for the day! 🙂

The Deep Fried Cinnamon Apple Rings come with a side of whipped cream. I like to think of this dessert as a slice of heaven in a basket.

There’s plenty more food & drinks that can be found at the LA County Fair! The fair runs through September 27th, so you’ll want to check it out before it closes.

Disclosure: No monetary compensation was received for this post. I attended a media preview which helped facilitate this review; however, I was under no obligation to blog about this visit. All images & opinions are 100% my own.