23rd Most Favorite Thing About The State Fair of Texas: The Tower Building

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it enough times, so I’ll say it again: one of my most favorite things to do at the State Fair of Texas is eat. Honestly, eating is one of my most favorite things to do in LIFE, so I suppose it’s not a huge shock to discover that such a chief preoccupation generally would transfer to this specific arena.

Given that, and the fact that each visit to the Fair grants you precious little time in which to search out and devour your personal selection of delicious treats, I must proclaim my appreciation for those designated areas that succeed in combining a wide selection of cuisine with items you actually WANT to eat.

High Quantity, High Quality, Minimal Distance to and from desirable food product — this is the State Fair Holy Trinity, and I’ve singled out two areas for top honors in this department.

The first (and number 23 on my countdown) is the food court at the Tower Building. I suppose I could do a little research and figure out how many vendors actually operate booths in the food court, but I would rather just go on thinking that there are HUNDREDS, and that the eating possibilities in this ONE BUILDING are simply endless. And that is the wonderful thing about the Tower Building. You could hunker down at the same red picnic table all day long and have a perfect breakfast (a latte and cinnamon roll, of course — I shall expound on its goodness later), second breakfast (another cinnamon roll), mid-morning snack (a fried vegetable of some sort — green tomatoes, pickles, etc.), lunch (take your pick of Greek, Mexican, Italian, or one of many other world cuisines), afternoon snack (nachos or frito pie), and dinner (burger, fried chicken, the list goes on…). If you went to the Fair and stayed in this one building all day long, you’d probably have a great visit (although you’d miss most of the best fried food, which I’d find somewhat offensive) AND you’d successfully avoid sunburn.

If I’m on a day-long Fair trip, I normally hit the Tower Building at least twice. Once, early in the day (say 10am-ish), for a cinnamon roll and latte, and then later on for whatever sounds good. Fried green tomatoes are always a hit, as are fried pickles (not a hit with Clare, though — we keep them away from her). Texas-shaped BBQ nachos are a magnificent novelty item if you’re with someone from out-of-state, but let’s just say I’ve had better BBQ nachos.

I’d much rather go for the Frito Pie, though. How can a person say no to a bowl full of salty, crunchy Fritos corn chips covered with spicy chili and tons of shredded cheddar? You are literally talking about a bowlful of grease, but it’s hard to care when it tastes so divine.

One must be careful, however, not to kill a Frito Pie too quickly, especially since you’ve got literally nothing (no fried dough, for instance) between your stomach wall and all that grease. Everything seems fine at first and then, all of a sudden, it jumps up and bites you.

Yeah. That’s about how it feels. (Don’t worry — the feeling passed in a couple of minutes and I was right back outside, searching for a Fried Twinkie.)

Thanks to Nikki Willis for the brilliant images, including the “Frito Pie: Before and After” photo essay.

~ by nf1014 on September 2, 2009.