It’s August in Vancouver.
Which means the fair is on at the PNE.
And the best thing about the fair is the food. Well it used to be anyways.
I’m recent years it almost been the only good thing about the fair. Every year I go though it seems to offer less and less value.
After our visit this year it may very well be our last.
The biggest disappointment for me was realizing that prize home isn’t set up here anymore. Now you have to go over to Langley to see it. And who wants to go to Langley?
It seems like there are less things to do this year too. I normally enjoy watching the horse shows. There weren’t any of those. Hardly any livestock beyond chickens were there.
Even the superdogs show seemed lame this year.
The showcase building seemed to have a lot less vendors in it as well.
And then came my biggest disappointment. The food.
Which we are going to have a running total for the day, just to add more disappointment.
We walked in the back gate and immediately saw our first stop, the Cannoli King.
$8 later and we are munching on a Limoncello cannoli.
It turned out to be really good. A freshly fried cannoli shell with a very lemony filling. A pretty good start to the day.
9/10
Next up pierogies from a long time PNE tradition, Hunky Bills.
We have been eating proper homemade pierogies of late so these ended up being a disappointment. I mean they were okay. A bit dry as I think they were probably sitting around after cooking for a bit too long. The sour cream and grilled onions did help cover that up a bit. We had some Farmer sausage as well and it was really good. Farmer’s sausage can sometimes have that really thick skin on it but this didn’t. Nice flavour too.
6/10
Total so far: $38
Where is Buckeye root beer? This year it’s Big Barrel.
From what I remember of Buckeye this stuff isn’t as good.
Either my taste buds have changed or this is inferior root beer.
5/10
$12 for 2. Total so far: $50
Another tradition for me at PNE was always Fisher scones. I can’t seem to find them this year. Rack up one more disappointment. Far too many of those this year.
To try and get over my disappointments of no scones we went and saw the Super Dogs. The dogs were good, but the jokes from the M.C. got tired very quickly. Maybe not the most “super” show ever.
Well it’s been half an hour since we had anything to eat and I’m hungry! First thing we ran into was a BBQ truck.
Which was unfortunate. $30 poorer and still hungry after a disappointming brisket sandwich.
That’s pretty sorry for 30 bucks. The brisket wasn’t good either It needed a couple more hours on the Q.
We are now up to $80.
At least the lemonade we got next was refreshing and delicious.
$88 and counting.
Not sure what drove us the the Twisted Potato truck.
I’ve had these before, not that exciting.
Wasn’t a fan of that powdered sour cream dressing they put on it. The crunxh and the salt were pretty good though
Yes we are almost at a hundred, $98
I think that’s about enough savory stuff today. Let’s finish off with some dessert, since we started that way.
I don’t recall ever having had a funnel cake before so I’m skipping the beaver tail that I usually get.
Dubai chocolate is all the rage right now. Funny I’ve never heard of it before today. Since it’s new to us we’re going to give it a go. And it’s not cheap.
If, like me, you haven’t heard of Dubai chocolate yet , it’s chocolate, tahini and pistachio cream.
And frankly it’s overrated. In this version anyways. Actually so was the funnel cake.
I much prefer a beaver tail or an elephant ear.
And ouch, $18.
So as it stands we are at $116 total.
But we aren’t quite done. A slushie to cool us off a bit.
And at $12 apiece that brings us to $140 for the day. For food.
Add that to the $60 to buyvthe tickets and $25 to park its become a very expensive day. Too expensive in my opinion.
That $225 would buy us a pretty nice meal somewhere. Which I think is probably the better option, value for money.
Next time I get the idea to go to the fair would somebody please smack some sense into me.
Overall score for the food we tried at the fair.
4/10
Overall score for the fair.
2/10