Getting Totally Fried with Chicken Charlie's at the L.A. County Fair!! Can Someone Get Me a Nice Kale Salad? Unfried.

Pickled bacon??!!

Can you smell the heady hot grease wafting in the air and straight to your nose holes? Yes sir, it's that time of year again when the freakiest fried foods of the season are premiered at the Los Angeles County Fair. The infamous Chicken Charlie's (yeah, the same outfit that brought you fried Kool-Aid, fried Oreos, and fried Klondike Bars) has raised (or lowered) the bar once again and brings for 2013 a couple of culinary oddities that is sure to shock and awe county fair foodies everywhere.

We've all been "in a pickle" before at one time or another, but have you ever been "in a bacon"? It appears more and more comestibles find themselves in a bacon nowadays─wrapped in bacon, to be precise. This year Chicken Charlie's takes a salty and sour pickle and entwines it with bacon then deep fries the entirety. The result is a crispy, salty bacon shell that, when breached, gushes forth a scalding burst of brine from a dill pickle. It's an amazing combination. But be warned: it's hot stuff. Let it cool a bit before biting. You don't want 3rd degree burns from a little pickle 'cuz that would be lame.


Getting sloppy with Krispy Kreme!

What do you get when you put sloppy joe meat filling in between two halves of a Krispy Kreme glazed donut? Sloppy Kreme, that's what! It's an odd sight but Chicken Charlie's pulls it off deliciously. Once you have your first bite, the blending of the donut and sweet, tomatoey ground beef all makes sense. Actually, it becomes something uniquely its own─sort of like a sloppy joe filled jelly donut but without the jelly.

Speaking of jelly donut, the very first Chicken Charlie's Krispy Kreme sandwich I ever ate a couple of years back was a fried chicken breast sandwiched by Krispy Kreme jelly donuts. It was sweet and savory, crispy and squishy. Exactly the roller coaster ride my mouth craves when eating at the fair. Wheeee! 


Are you ready for this jelly??

L.A. County Fair, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona,  CA, 909.865.4590
Runs from Aug. 30 to Sept. 29, 2013