The San Diego County Fair is once again here. It’s something I look forward to every year and this year is no exception. This year’s theme is the Fab Four, celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first visit to the US.

As always, my main focus for attending is the fair food. I’m proud to say that my group of four managed to finish every single bite of what we bought at the fair this year, a first. Usually we have leftovers, unwanted food that gets tossed, etc.  But we went with two people this year that more than held their weight. They promised to be human garbage cans and they fulfilled those words. Heck, even the jalapeno juice was gulped down (More on that later).

Near the main entrance is Chicken Charlie’s, one of the most popular food stands, which brings over-the-top fried creations each year. One of their new items this year was the calorie bomb Triple Decker Krispy Kreme cheeseburger. I don’t even want to know the nutritional value of that. We ended up passing on it.

But I did have my heart set on another new item, deep fried chicken skins!

I adore crispy chicken skins, so I was eager to try Chicken Charlie’s version. Each order came with 4 pieces, priced at $6.94 + tax. The seasoned batter was quite crunchy and flavorful. Unfortunately, the chicken skin itself is not at all crisp. It was still its normal fatty self. I can’t stand eating fatty chicken skin. I only eat it if the fat has been rendered off. I was surprised Chicken Charlie’s didn’t prepare that chicken skins in a way so that the chicken skin itself is crispy.

This was a little disappointing for me, but no one else seemed to mind and the rest of the group had no problems polishing off the skins, which were also served with some ranch dressing.

Ironically we followed up our chicken skins by visiting the fluffy chickens and prize-winning birds.

Bacon Wrapped Jack Daniels Infused Churros


From the Bacon A Fair station, one of the new items is bacon wrapped Jack Daniels infused churros. I was definitely curious. For $6, we got two tiny churros, only slighter bigger than the length of a finger. The bacon was soggy rather than crispy, quite a misstep considering this is the bacon everything vendor.

I also found the Jack Daniels overwhelming, making the churro batter too bitter. There also seemed to be some inconsistency, since one of the people in our group couldn’t taste any Jack Daniels. The churros were served with whipped cream and syrup. Mr. K proceeded to drink the rest of the syrup and whipped cream, setting the bar for “finishing every bite.”

The Fruit Caboose vendor was offering three new desserts. The one that sounded most interesting to me was the Cowboy Sundae. Per the San Diego County Fair website, the description is, “waffle cone shaped like a cowboy hat, filled with ice cream and topped with “cowboy” candies such as candied chiles.”

At $9, I thought the price was steep. I was even more disappointed when we got our sundae which was a sad shadow of what the picture depicts. Our sundae didn’t stand tall and instead the cowboy hat completely covered the ice cream.


I had to lift up the cowboy shaped waffle hat just to get a picture of the ice cream. The soft serve vanilla ice cream has jalapenos mixed in and is also adorned with more jalapenos. However that was the extent of the toppings, unlike the photo which shows a colorful creation. I didn’t taste any jalapeno “candies,” I also was not a fan of the jalapeno and ice cream mix.

The guys seemed to find the flavors intriguing and polished this off. And since Mr. K had drank the syrup, our friend proceeded to drink the remaining melted vanilla ice cream mixed with jalapeno juice. Oi.

Blooming Onion

After three mediocre experiences with new fair items, we decided to go for some classics, like the giant blooming onion.

It has less batter than traditional fried onion rings, letting the crisp onions shine through. I was surprised that we polished this off in minutes.

Funnel Cake with Raspberry Sauce

What’s a fair visit without some funnel cake? The fried dough creation was as good as I always remember.

Flower Exhibit Break!

Turkey Leg @ Juicys

My favorite item to get at the fair is definitely the oversized smoked turkey leg. In the past, our go-to vendor has been Turkey Shack, who are experts at keeping the meat flavorful and moist. However, when we passed by their stand, instead of cooking hundreds of turkey legs, their grills were practically empty and the employees were just standing around. I don’t know what happened but it was a depressing sight, so we decided to go to another vendor.

Juicy’s turkey legs looked mouthwatering, but were actually overcooked and bland.

Curly Fries with Cheese @ Juicys

This hadn’t been on my radar, but I saw a customer walk away with it and was immediately intrigued by the the cube of curly fries, so we ordered them.

Unfortunately, this looked more impressive than it tasted. The curly fries were quite bland, tasting only of potatoes and salt.

The Beatles Exhibit

We took another break to visit The Beatles exhibit. By this time, the sun had set and it was getting chilly out. Some people hadn’t brought jackets and were ready to head home.

We made one last round for food.

Cowabunga Corn Dog

Though we were quite stuffed by this point, I couldn’t imagine leaving the fair without a corn dog. We decided to try Juicy’s version, which is stuffed with a sausage. I love the jumbo size of the corn dogs here and I did find the sausage version to be tastier than the hot dog one.

Seven food items and five sodas later, we were finally ready to call it a night. See you next year, Fair!

The Fair ends Sunday July 6 (closed Mondays and the first two Tuesdays). If you happen to have a group, Costco offers a pretty good fair package which includes 4 adult admissions, one parking pass, 4 drink coupons and 50 ride coupons for $59.99.

For another perspective, check out Cathy’s pre-opening visit.

San Diego County Fair
Del Mar Fairgrounds
2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd.
Del Mar, CA 92014
https://www.sdfair.com/