MN State Fair 2011: Island Noodles [Vegan Mofo]

Argh! I didn't post anything yesterday, so I will make up for it today and tomorrow. Vegan Month of Food, or Vegan Mofo, is throughout the month of October this year. This is the fifth year of Vegan Mofo, and my first in participating. The idea is to blog about vegan food: with recipes, pictures, talking about favorite appliances or techniques, favorite ingredients -- you get the idea. Anything about vegan food! The aim is to post 20 days out of the month, or everyday if you can. My goal is to do as many days as possible. Follow the link above, or here, to veganmofo.com to find out more and see all the wonderful participating blogs and their awesome posts.

Ok, on to Day 8 for me (I've posted 6/8 days in October so far):

The MN State Fair takes over the last two weeks of summer every year here. I love it and go every year. There are a few vegan items here and there: snowcones are generally ok, lemonade, etc. The roasted corn stand is awesome - just as for no butter. One stand I found last year was the Island Noodles. I grilled the folks about ingredients to check for fish sauce, etc. Without my prompting, they told me it was completely vegan, and you could add chicken if desired.

Island Noodles are a stir fry of soba noodles and a TON of veggies: bok choy, peas, cabbage, broccoli, onion, carrot...they say it's 21 veggies, which I believe. Here's a shot of the giant wok:



A blurry photo of my container:



And a close-up of the inside, with my added sriracha:



It made my day for a satisfying lunch at the fair. I also had some corn and beverages as well as some awesome french fries.

Minnesota State Fair - Roasted Corn, Vegan Tamales

The Minnesota State Fair is a huge event. Over at their website, they show detailed daily attendance which totaled 1,693,533 over 12 days this year.

What is the best part about the fair? The food. And while I don't eat the pronto pups or cheese curds, there are plenty of other choices around.

The number one stop on my list has to be the Corn Roast. It's quite the massive setup: a line of workers (usually high school age) rotate on two sides, carrying corn cobs from the huge roasters, hand dip them in vats of butter and hand them off to throngs of people who have already paid for the delicious corn.



Of course, I get mine with no butter, which disrupts the line a little bit, but they are used to requests such as that and promptly get me my corn. Pour on salt and pepper - enjoy! Just be careful not to burn your mouth:



What else is at the fair? Holy Land (my previously mentioned favorite local maker of falafel, hummus, and other Middle Eastern treats) has a booth, there are places to get fresh veggie trays and fruit, salted plain soft pretzels tend to be vegan if you request no butter, fries...they even had a place that had an advertised "animal product free" Asian noodle dish. I wasn't able to make it over to that intriguing booth.

Instead, I fulfilled my food dreams by finding the Midtown Global Market booth, which featured different food vendors each day. I struck gold when I saw that La Loma Tamales was there the day I went. They serve vegan tamales, confirmed because I buy their handmade frozen vegetable tamales and the ingredients say they are free of cheese and lard and other animal products. I also made sure to ask the various cooks and servers. I love these tamales. At home, I put sriracha on them or eat with beans or other foods. They are delicious plain, though.

The pictures don't do justice to their deliciousness: