The fair is one excuse to indulge ourselves with foods high in fat and not feel guilty about it. Yeah, there are the rides, the shows, the booths, and the concerts, but be real: when you come to the fair, you come to eat.
You have a variety of foods to choose from when you are at the fair. There are the typical foods like pizza, corndogs, hamburgers, and barbecue. However, you can also get a variety of Mexican foods, Italian foods and even Japanese food (chicken teriyaki bowl).
It seems the food theme for the fair is always deep fried. Burritos, corndogs, funnel cakes, Oreo cookies, potatoes, Snickers bars, even zucchini all come deep fried.
The funnel cakes, cotton candy, corndogs and hamburgers were abundant, so I tried some of each from different stands, and overall, the cotton candy was the best out of the bunch. The funnel cakes were lacking one big component, taste. The corndogs lacked any real flavor and had enough grease to fry an egg. I guess I picked the wrong stand to order a hamburger from because it was dry and overcooked. Now the cotton candy, though I know it is just spun sugar, was the only tolerable item of the bunch.
However, there are some good food choices at the fair. You can go to La Villa Festiva, which is the Latin nook of the fair, and order from one of the restaurants there like Pacos Tacos, El Chile Verde or El Pablo.
On the other hand, you can walk down the main street of the fair and stop at the B.A.R.C. stand, Kiwanis Club of Oildale, the Teen Challenge booth, Martin’s Tri-Tip, Pastrami King, or any of the Boy Scout booths. There are also many other booths there that I have failed to mention.
My personal favorite of the fair was Strasner’s Bar-B-Que, specializing in deep pit beef. I had the Deep Pit Beef Burrito, which was recommended to me by Steve Strasner, and it was excellent.
The Strasners have been doing their thing for 50 years now, and they only come out to the fair and the hot rod event in April. So I recommend if you are at the fair, you stop at the Strasner’s stand and order something there. You can even try the taco salad they offer, it’s new this year.