Every year in Toronto, Canada there's a big event known as the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE). The CNE originally was like the national fair of Canada. It would happen after each province and county in Canada had their local fairs with the goal of getting the best of the best of these fairs and merging them together as one. The main feature used to be the judging of prize winning livestock, foods and fruits and vegetables. There would also be butter carving competitions and other events. However since it was also a fair, there were rides, games and a other fun attractions for people to enjoy. The CNE was Canada's biggest fair, and it was something I would look forward to each and every year.
Today the CNE is a little different. The main difference is that they've moved the farm judging to another time (a few weeks before). While there is a small portion still dedicated to farm animals and country life, most of the fair is selling things like crafts and home goods, rides, and carnival food. It used to be my number one reason for going the CNE was the farm stuff, now I find my main focus is the food. Apparently I'm not the only one.
The CNE has developed a reputation for some weird food choices, but most importantly almost every choice of food is not healthy at all. It's as if the CNE has become all of Toronto's cheat day when it comes to eating. This year was no exception for me as I ate some pretty unhealthy treats. Here's everything I ate at the CNE this year, and how it rated:
I started out with some deep fried cheese curd (sorry I didn't take a photo, I was too hungry). Deep fried cheese curd is basically like mozzarella sticks only smaller. The coating on them was nicely seasoned, and like mozzarella sticks they came with a marinera sauce which worked really well. This was a great way to start my morning and warm me up for what was to come.
The second thing I ate was deep fried pizza. When I first heard about the deep fried pizza at the CNE, my assumption was that it would just be a slice of pizza stuck in a deep fryer. Instead it was a heavily battered slice of pizza, deep fried and then covered in Doritos. They also offered several toppings like garlic sauce and hot honey, but I just went plain. It was pretty good, but I think the pizza could have used more tomato sauce and cheese.
Next I had what I consider to be a CNE classic, Tiny Tom Donuts. I've written about these delicious little deep fried treats before and they did not disappoint this year. My friends and I came up with a theory about these donuts this year. We believe that these donuts have the shortest shelf life of any donut in the world. If you eat them within 20 minutes of buying them, they're great. If you wait beyond the 20 minutes they're not so great. We also noticed this year that they offer several new flavours including a strawberry powder, but we stuck with the classics cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar.
After we finished our donuts, we headed into the midway where we discovered a spot where they were giving away free Nerds Gummy Clusters. The good news is that they gave me a pack of one of the flavours I'd never reviewed before. The bad news for you is that you'll have to wait for the official review to find out what I thought about them.
After some fun adventures as well as a Toronto Argos football game, we decided it was dinner time. We went to an area where they had a bunch of food trucks, and I was certain that I would get myself something a little more sensible for dinner. Then I saw this beast of a chicken sandwich and I just couldn't say no. What I ate (pictured above) is a Biscoff-fried chicken crunch ice cream sandwich. What it is a chicken sandwich deep fried with a Biscoff cookie coating. It's then covered in a hot honey, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and covered in Biscoff cookie bits. It really seems like something that shouldn't work, but it does. It is sweet, a little spicy, but also cooled off well from the ice cream. I ate the whole thing and didn't regret it at all, but I did start craving a salad by this point.
To end the day we decided to pick up one of the newer carnival classics, some deep fried Oreo cookies. I keep remembering that I enjoy these deep fried delights, but each time I eat them I'm still amazed at how well this works. The cookie and the icing melt perfectly in the batter to create something that does taste like an Oreo, but doesn't feel like one.
At the end of the day I realized two things. First of all each and every thing (except the nerds) that I ate was deep fried. The second thing I realized is that I did not eat a single vegetable. Let's just say that for the next week I'll be eating salads exclusively. It was however a great day at the CNE, me and my friends shared some amazing treats, and none of us got sick. The deep fried Oreo cookies and Tiny Tom Donuts remain a favourite, but the Biscoff-fried chicken crunch ice cream sandwich was an amazing surprise.
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