Giant Gummi Bear

My wonderful fiancé bought me a gummi bear for my birthday this past year. For some reason, I’ve not found a good reason to eat it. I know it sounds like one measly gummi bear, but I assure you, this thing is a force to be reckoned with. It’s enormous.


As you can see from the photo, it is bigger-than-fist-sized and on a stick. Everything’s better on a stick, and this is no different. I had wondered why she asked me what my favorite flavor of gummi bear was shortly before my birthday, and I found out soon enough. I still don’t know why I haven’t eaten this thing.

We both did our best to eat this thing in one sitting, but it isn’t possible. It’s like drinking a gallon of corn syrup with a little bit of pineapple flavor in it. It’s delicious for about three minutes, then it’s painful and your jaw locks up (twss). I put it back in the bag and its coffin-like carrying case. I’ll eat the thing later. I just wanted people to see how enormous this thing is (twss).

Thanks for the birthday gift, lady. It is perfect!

Lucky Inn Chinese Cuisine – Eden Prairie, MN

I needed to escape for lunch to run some errands and I remembered this place was close. I thought I get in there quickly and back out to do my other stuff on my lunch break. It’s in a strip mall near work, so this helped my justification.

The inside is a standard strip mall layout, nothing fancy or flashy, but clean. The buffet was kind of an L-shape against one wall. I got a table and headed to the buffet. As I said before, I’m not really a buffet guy, but I was in a hurry and this way, I got to try some of everything. I heard the buffet was small, but I wasn’t prepared for how small it actually was. It’s really small. Which is weird because I didn’t seem to have room on my plate for everything.

I’m not sure how they packed so much food onto a tiny buffet, but they did. I had to heap things rather than try to keep them separate. Unfortunately, there are no name plates stating what the dishes are, so I was just piling all kinds of foods onto my plates. I’m still not sure what some of them were. But there were a lot of foods on sticks and a lot of fried foods. How can you go wrong with that?

The fried rice had bean sprouts and egg and onions in it, which is nice to see someone put effort into fried rice. All of the chicken dishes were really tasty. It’s odd, but the food tasted better than it looked. It looked kind of bland, like the broccoli was a tad wilty and the brown coloring of a lot of the food made it seem more depressing. But flavor-wise, it was much better than expected. Not great. In fact, there aren’t many Chinese restaurants I would rave about the flavor, but this place definitely tasted better than it looked.

I ate a handful of these bacon-wrapped mystery-meats which were good, but I still don’t know what kind of meat they were wrapped around. I had some deep fried egg thingy (probably egg foo yung) which was good, but the weird gravies (is there a plural for gravy?) were brown and chunky and as I said, weird. The meat on sticks was good – beef, I’m assuming. And the handful of fried things, which I may never know their origin, were also good.

I got completely stuffed here. I also heard some bizarre conversations, but none of them appropriate for re-telling. There was also a spa/salon next door that I watched TONS of people going into. Am I the only one that doesn’t get a mani/pedi/massage during my lunch break in Minnesota? Geesh.

I’ll go again, but not anytime soon. It was decent and close.

Top 5 things about Lucky Inn Chinese Cuisine
1. Bacon at a Chinese restaurant – genius!
2. Great selection of food for a tiny buffet
3. Effort into the fried rice
4. Lots of food on sticks
5. Really close to work

Bottom 5 things
1. Didn’t know what I was eating for at least half the meal
2. Tiny buffet
3. Buffet had REALLY bad flow issues
4. Cream cheese wonton had a super tiny amount of cream cheese in it
5. Weird gravy and sauces

Minnesota State Fair - St. Paul, MN

Apparently, I’m the only person in the US who has never been to a state fair. So I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured it would be a large county fair – I was right. But it was honestly huge on a level I can’t comprehend. We basically went to eat and people watch. I didn’t think it was legal (or fair) to show photos of some of the freak shows that were walking around there, but it’s super tempting. So we’ll focus on the food.

This is what we’ll call at State Fair Baby. This is what happens when you eat for 4 hours straight – seriously 4 hours straight. I will raise him and love him and call him George.


We started the day off with some macaroni and cheese on a stick (the stick is crucial to good fair food) from Axel’s. They were pretty good. I don’t know that I would fight anyone for them, but they were good. Can’t complain.

Then we found some bison on a stick, which sounded appealing. It was kind of a shish-ka-bob sort of thing. The meat was really juicy and flavorful and ended up being an awesome snack. I’m guessing the American Indians thought, “Hey! Why didn’t WE think of leaving the spear right in the bison while we were eating it??? It tastes so much better on a stick!!!”

We kept seeing signs for breakfast foods. Since it was before noon, we thought what the heck. And why would you want something plain when you can have fair food. We ended up with a breadbowl breakfast with Cajun potatoes, eggs, and sausage jumbalaya on top. This was REALLY good. I don’t get to eat a Cajun breakfast very often, so it really hit the spot.

We then saw the Sham-Wow booth which our friend Coach is enamored with. It is basically a super absorbent towel. You can throw it in the ocean and destroy the world’s ecosystem in one move. Still not impressive, but the people that do these real-life infomercials always have waaaay too much energy.

We checked out the dog and pet center. I won myself a shirt by spinning a wheel. We saw some dogs whose main job is sit behind gates and get petted by like 500,000 people. Rough life.

Next, we had a hankering for some Elk, so we found an elk burger at Giggly’s and split it. Great burger, but I don’t know that the elk tasted that different from a bison burger, honestly. It was a great burger, though, so I won’t complain about it. Giggly’s has a personal condiment girl who will put toppings on your sammich. That’s class.

We’re getting thirsty at this point, so we hit up one of the best root beer stands in the country. 1919 is quality barrel root beer. I’m hard pressed to think any root beer is better than Sprecher, but if 1919 is not better than Sprecher, it’s neck and neck. Seriously, this root beer is awesome. I will fight you if you say different.

Then dessert sounded good, and since you can get everything in the world deep fried at a fair, we ended up with the deep fried cheesecake. It wasn’t what I expected, in fact, it looked like an eggroll of some sort. But I guess they have to have a way of keeping the cheesecake from running free. It must have been good because I didn’t get a single bite of it. Hmmm. How does that work?

Then we needed additional desserts, so that led us to Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar. We have heard people talking about this place for months, so it was part of the master plan before we even got to the fair. These cookies are served warm, which makes them better. I didn’t see a stick option on these cookies, so I can only assume people’s heads exploded at previous fairs due to the stick adding too much awesomeness. You can buy these in a bucket, but then you have to carry the bucket around with you all day. If you go to the fair, you should probably make a point to get some of these. They’re just chocolate chip cookies, but they’re warm and gooey, so take ‘em or leave ‘em.

Let’s see. What culinary adventure haven’t we partaken in yet?.... hmmm. Something salty, yet sweet. What solves both of those needs? Chocolate covered bacon from Famous Dave’s booth. Yes, I’m serious. They’re called Pig Lickers. I’ll be honest with you, I almost opted out of this abomination, but I’m not one to pass up bacon EVER, so I caved. And you know what? It wasn’t bad actually. I’d recommend trying at least one piece at some point. You’ll be weirded out, but you won’t be disappointed.

Then we went and watched part of the cattle show. Yup, a real live cattle show with judges and hot cowgirls and grizzled farmers. I’ve never experienced this subculture, but apparently, this is what cattle, horse, sheep, pig, and goat farmers live for each year. So you owe it to yourself to see what the fair probably was originally based around. We stayed for a short while, and got a chuckle out of the winners getting their photos taken like it was prom. Awesome.

We then went to the birth center or baby farm animal barn. IT was pretty interesting. They artificially inseminate the animals so they can have a pretty good idea of when they’re going to give birth. Then they bring them into this barn around fair time and kids can be absolutely horrified at the miracle of birth. Seriously you have no idea, unless you’ve seen it before. Great and gross learning experience. We didn’t see any birthing, but we saw random things coming out of various animals, and we heard kids (and grown-ups) “ewwwww”-ing a couple of times.

But wait, it’s not over yet! We’re still hungry. Don’t ask me how. We needed more items on a stick! So it was off to get a pork chop on a stick. We’ve heard other fairs do not actually have a stick, but rather a bone. This, as explained earlier, detracts from the flavor. But Go Minnesota for having sticks! The pork chop on a stick was super good. They had seasoning salt for you to put on it, but it clearly did not need anything else. It was perfect.

To put a cap on a day at the fair, we needed to find (an additional) dessert. So we found some Minnesota gelato (which pales sadly in comparison to its European brother). It was a great finisher to an awesome day at the 2008 Minnesota State Fair.

So, 4 hours and a hundred bucks later (yes, really), we headed home for nap time.

Top 5 things about the fair
1. Anything fried
2. There are MANY root beer stands
3. It’s huge – people go multiple days
4. If it’s hot, the outfits get skimpier
5. Honestly, the food isn’t THAT expensive.

Top 5 worst things about the fair
1. It’s FULL of white trash people
2. IF you don’t go in the morning, the place is packed to the gills
3. There’s not enough shade for our pasty skin
4. If you’re on a diet, or watching cholesterol or fat, then slash your wrists at the gate
5. I don’t have 7 stomachs like a cow…

www.mnstatefair.org