The best place for the Big Tex Choice Awards, a celebration of the best new (usually fried) foods at the fair, is apparently as close to the livestock as possible. Breathe deeply as you walk past the building marked “POULTRY”; appreciate the completely splattered ketchup packet in the parking lot; appreciate the effort the Texas sun has made to kill the lawn outside the Briscoe Carpenter Livestock Center arena, with the square edges of the brand-new, never-grow turf still clearly visible.
Someone in a Little Big Tex costume stubs out a cigarette and walks through the building’s double doors. It’s time to get started.
You could relieve the tension in your shins with a giant Big Tex Lucchese Boot. There’s a lot at stake here for the ten finalists in the Big Tex Choice Awards contest. (You can read more about them here.) Winning the title of Most Creative, Best Savory Dish, or Best Sweet Dish directly means a long line outside your food stall and the potential of a six-figure bonus in your pocket. Losing means you’ve put a lot of marketing and effort into a brand new product for your stall that may not bring you full profit (cotton candy).
Texas State Fair
The original idea of this contest was to bring some attention to fairground food and encourage the concessionaires to come up with new ideas to keep things fresh. It’s safe to say that 20 years later, we only have Big Tex and his little awards show to thank for living in a world with Hot Chick-in-Pancake Poppers. And of course, the concessionaires keep things fresh – fresh frying oil counts, right?
A jury from “various culinary areas” will determine whose fried fantasies will prevail.
Karbach Brewing Co., the main sponsor of the Big Tex Choice Awards, has Brad Batson on the judging panel, who offers tasting notes with beer recommendations. He really hopes you’ll pair a fried dish with a Karbach beer. We know you definitely Pair it with a few local beers from the dealership. Nothing says State Fair like a dad testing the sound system in a 2025 minivan by earnestly screaming Matchbox 20 after some hippie chips and 32 ounces of warm Bud Light.
Lean over and whisper to any restaurant owner in Dallas, “Leslie Brenner is here,” and you will immediately know what kind of review she gave him during her tenure as restaurant editor at The Dallas Morning News by the amount of expo trauma flashing in her eyes. (This is actually a mean prank. Don’t do it unless you’re ready for a good beating.) She has strong opinions, she’s way too overqualified for this panel, and she has the best chance of being honest about your options for new expo food this year. She seemed very happy with the Drowning Taquitos and the Bacon Cotton Candy on a Stick (“How big was the pig that this bacon came from??”).
Calvin Golden, who received Wingstop’s Lifetime Achievement Award and now sits on the board of Wingstop Charities, seems to know a thing or two about fried food. No one mentions his perfectly deep radio voice, in the style of Morpheus from “The Matrix,” while commenting on these carnival fare, but The Ticket should add him to its list ASAP. Everything he said carried weight, just the way he said it. “I was careful with it,” he said of the Texas Sugar Rush Pickles. Of the Bacon Cotton Candy on a Stick, he said, “When you look at it, the presentation is — well, you’re kind of speechless,” and then, “I really think it’s going to be very popular.” Morpheus has spoken. And so it is.
Nikky Phinyawatana, executive chef of the Asian Mint restaurant group, is also on the judging panel this year. Hangover from the State Fair of Texas after eating all that fried food and walking around the melting asphalt roads of the fair this season? She recommends coming to her restaurant and ordering a “beautiful, cleansing mocktail” with ginger to ease your discomfort. During her judging panel, she was the only one to discover that if you fold the Dominican Fritura Dog like a hot dog (instead of cutting it with a knife and fork), it instantly turns back into a portable corn dog. You could hear a light bulb go off in the auditorium when she said, “I saw you use a fork and knife. But look—just do this.” (squeezes corn dog and takes a bite). So many lives have changed.
Donovan Lewis – who we all know from 1310 The Ticket – has been a judge of this contest for a thousand years. I know the contest has only been around for 20 years and it’s not 1,000 years old, but I swear to you he’s been judging it here and in all the parallel universes on different timelines for ages. To me, he’s the only judge we need. He said the Texas Sugar Rush Pickles have so much going on; they’re like “an exuberant six-year-old.” He told me he was scared of these pickles before he even tried them. But he was pleasantly surprised. When I asked him what he thought they would do to his body later that evening, he just laughed and said, “Only time will tell!” Thank you for your service, sir.
Alice Laussade
The best part of the whole competition is watching the concessionaires win. There are so many tears of joy, so much cheering from the crowd and from their fellow concessionaires. Justin Martinez won Best Savory Dish with his Dominican Fritura Dog and was visibly close to tears when he heard how much it meant to him and his family. When Texas Sugar Rush Pickles was announced as the winner of the Most Creative Dish title, a man in a cowboy hat in the row in front of me jumped up and yelled, “That’s my wife, guys!” And then you see Isaac Ruosso standing next to a life-sized bacon-on-a-stick cotton candy wearing its own gold chain, inviting people to take selfies.
Texas, you outdid yourself this year. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners of the Big Tex Choice Awards. If you get a chance to try any of these dishes this year, you’ll be surprised and delighted – just like the feeling you get every year when you see Big Tex up close and personal. Thank goodness the State Fair of Texas is upon us again.
The 2024 State Fair of Texas begins Friday, September 27 and runs through Sunday, October 20. You can purchase season passes and premium tickets online at BigTex.com/Tickets.
