Fairly Unbalanced

Fairly Unbalanced made the difficult decision in 2021 to step back from doing new food reviews for the year due to a lack of time to reach as many foods as possible during a reduced number of hours visiting the Fair while being mindful of the pandemic, but if we had reviewed new foods last year Baba’s would have received our highest marks for their astounding hummus bowls. With a variety of fun and novel takes on the Middle Eastern chickpea dish, including the perfect-for-the-Fair Dill & Curd Hummus featuring pickles and cheese curds, Baba’s made an immediate impact on the Fair food landscape in their rookie year serving from an eye-catching Airstream trailer on Machinery Hill.

Baba’s has amped up their presence in 2022 by adding two additional hummus bowls to their roster, a chocolate-forward dessert hummus (review coming soon), and this stellar buffalo chicken offering. Ranch hummus is topped by fried buffalo chicken bites, blue cheese crumbles, buffalo sauce, buffalo dust, and scallions, all served alongside a skewer of pillowy-soft pita puffs. While those that avoid spice will want to consider their other options, we found that the hummus balanced out the heat and the buffalo flavor shined through. The chicken was plentiful, and each piece was well-coated with the buffalo sauce. The blue cheese crumbles added a tanginess that paired perfectly with the buffalo heat, and gave the entire dish the feeling that it belongs as an elevated bar appetizer. The true secret to Baba’s success however is the exemplary hummus they have concocted, a rich and silky smooth spread that is magic at first bite and will have you scraping the sides of the bowl to get every last bit. Carb-lovers won’t be able to get enough of their pita puffs either, making the perfect serving spoon for the hummus and all the toppings. The pita is so warm and squishy, with the only downside being that not nearly enough of them are served with the dish, leading to an imbalance of hummus to pita — spoonfuls of remaining hummus will have to suffice after the pita supply runs out.

At a price of $13, this is a premium experience that doesn’t come cheaply, but the bowl is filling and makes for a meal-sized choice and you’re not cheated on the amount of ingredients at that price. It also remains light enough that you can fit it in before or after other Fair food options — this won’t be a gut bomb that leaves you needing to take a break for a while. It’s so tasty that your next Fair food choice just might have to be a follow-up bowl of Baba’s!

Ratings (0-5):

• Taste: 5
• Appearance: 4
• Novelty: 3
• Value: 4

Overall Score: 16 out of 20 (Blue Ribbon Best)

How do you improve upon a time-honored classic treat like a sweet cheese blintz and make it State Fair-worthy, something unique and notable among a torrent of other food options? iPierogi, the once futuristic-sounding Food Building vendor that now has a name that borders on bizarre, has not solved this question with their pedestrian take on a crepe filled with cream cheese.

It’s important to note that no mistakes have been made with their execution of this staple of Jewish cuisine, but this version plays it too safe and offers none of the accoutrements you often find like berries or jam. Even if provided for an additional fee, some fruit to help this item would have gone a long way toward making it more compelling, but what you see is what you get sadly and more complex blintzes can certainly be found elsewhere. Fortunately, the crepe itself was perfectly soft and fluffy, with the faintest sign of having met the grilltop. The cream cheese was as sweet as promised — though not plentiful. Too many bites were overpowered by the crepe and the heavy dusting of powdered sugar rather than the cream cheese which should take precedent.

Luckily, this blintz is an affordable proposition at $5, making it a cheap sweets fix that will also remain light enough to leave your stomach free for other Fair foods on your bucket list. As a quick snack readily available with typically short lines and minimal prep time, this is a great grab-and-go item that does have some function within the busy Fair atmosphere. There is room for improvement if they do allow for additions in future years, and we hope that iPierogi opts to reconsider rather than remove from offer. As it stands currently we wouldn’t steer you away from ordering this, it just won’t be your most memorable eat of the day and shouldn’t be at the top of your to-do list during your visit.

Ratings (0-5):

• Taste: 2
• Appearance: 2
• Novelty: 0
• Value: 3

Overall Score: 7 out of 20 (Better Luck Next Year)

It’s been a mixed bag over the last few years for the once undefeatable Blue Barn that helms one side of the West End Market. Always a vendor looking to innovate, their menu has seen some curious additions that seem to depart their roster just as quickly as they’ve arrived. In a Fair landscape where the goal is to create a food that has staying power and achieve iconic Fair Food status, most of the recent creations have struggled to take hold.

Sadly, we’re not sure that Blue Barn has succeeded in creating a breakfast item that’s worthy of sticking around for some time with their latest offering, the Breakfast Gnocchi. We did feel that the strengths of this dish outweigh the drawbacks; the pesto cream sauce that douses both the gnocchi and scrambled eggs was rich and vibrant, and worked in tandem with the balsamic glaze to add depth to the flavor profile and detract from the starchiness of the gnocchi. In addition, the hunks of bacon provided were numerous, large, and meaty, and became the desired centerpiece after the first bite. We’ve been served far worse scrambled eggs on the Fairgrounds as well, though the eggs operate more to fill-in the serving bowl than as a highlight. The titular potato gnocchi however were bland and quickly became an afterthought, and the scallions provided little more than a little bit of color sitting atop an already disheveled appearance.

The $11.75 asking price felt too steep for what amounted to a rather small portion size and an experience that would not have us clamoring for more. Despite the heaps of pesto cream, this should be easy enough to walk around with and consume if you’re looking to stay mobile and have some breakfast on the go, as the gnocchi and eggs both seemed to soak the wetter elements into themselves well and each bite adhered to the fork. While this wasn’t an overwhelmingly negative experience, we’d suggest the far more novel Pop Rocks French Toast Bites as a better — and more iconic — breakfast option from this vendor.

Ratings (0-5):

• Taste: 3
• Appearance: 4
• Novelty: 3
• Value: 1

Overall Score: 12 out of 20 (Fairly Fresh)

You must be doing something right — or have some divine intervention — if you’re celebrating your 125th anniversary as a Minnesota State Fair vendor. As the Fair’s oldest food concession, Hamline Church Dining Hall has persisted for over a century with a concept that is now quaint within the Fairgrounds but once was commonplace, serving breakfast and lunch staples by way of cafeteria-style ordering and communal sit-down tables. If you order coffee, rather than being given a styrofoam cup, you receive a proper ceramic cup and a full pot is brought to you when you find your seat, with cream and sugar available in caddies at each place setting. It can be a nice respite from some of the Fair’s mayhem while also being a touchstone to how things once were at the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

However, one shouldn’t confuse longevity and tradition with a willingness to rest on their laurels and an avoidance of change, as Hamline Church has brought in new menu items regularly over the last few years, as well as adding in an ice cream service window to the front of their sizeable hall near the Fair’s Main Gate. With this year’s new food item Hamline has partnered with Dinkytown breakfast nook Al’s Breakfast, itself a bona fide Twin Cities institution with a seating area roughly four times smaller than the spacious Hamline Dining Hall, to deliver a short-stack of three sizeable blueberry pancakes from the restaurant’s celebrated recipe.

As a Fair vendor with one of the earliest opening times (now opening alongside the Fair gates at 7 AM), there is tremendous opportunity to bring their guests a hearty, filling breakfast at a time that most of the other vendors aren’t even available. Unfortunately, as a fan of the real Al’s Breakfast, the soggy, lifeless pancakes received for the Fair’s version were underwhelming. They seemed smaller in size and thickness than I recalled from my most recent Al’s Breakfast visit, and while blueberries were visually apparent dotting the pancake batter throughout, they had a miniscule effect on the tastebuds. These pancakes were sadly no better than average, the type you might find at a breakfast chain restaurant. The only additions that attempted to elevate these pancakes were a large dollop of creamy butter and a perfunctory homemade maple syrup available at the table.

Worst of all, these pancakes are no value at $10.25 for the stack of three, far exceeding the Al’s Breakfast menu price even accounting for some reasonable State Fair markup. While we do take into account the portability that we believe good Fair food should have and assess it within the appearance judging category, there is no expectation of such when ordering pancakes. Our recommendation would be to skip this disappointing Fair version but squeeze in to the diminutive and iconic Dinkytown restaurant for the real deal in the near future. At least Hamline Church’s coffee was unlimited and strong!

Ratings (0-5):

• Taste: 2
• Appearance: 2
• Novelty: 1
• Value: 1

Overall Score: 6 out of 20 (Better Luck Next Year)