// KOTAKU — GAMING
The Abominations I Ate At The CNE This Year
The midway felt smaller this year. My old carny boss told me that wedged between Doug Ford’s pawning of Ontario Place and the still unfinished Ontario Line promised for the World Cup, parking for the CNE and its casino has eaten further into the fairground. It’s dog eat dog, and cars are not the only hungry ones. Not the only attrition. Year after year, the main draw to this carnival and many others is not rides or games, but food. Bigger. Nastier. Dumber. The stretch of pavement I ran “fortune falls” as a teenager is now a gangway of food trucks, each vying for your money and posts with new configurations of candy and pickles.
I’m usually resilient to the stunt foods. I aim to keep the nastiest thing I’ve had on the fairground as that coffee creamer I mistook for a milkshake after a long shift. But if you’re paying admission, if there are fewer haunted houses, you missed the Bif Naked concert and the Polar Express ride replaced its airbrush murals with AI viking women, you need some amusement for the park. So let’s roll these dice together. From new innovations in Jamaican beef patties to horrific Oreo mutations, here’s a rundown of the abominations I ate at the CNE this year.
My sister-in-law kicked the day off with a cup of this. You brace yourself for something along the line of a bitter ginger beer, but the different flavors aren’t playing together. All headbutting each other in the middle, leaving you with nothing distinctive. It sucked, frankly. Not outright nasty, but unaided by the fact the most notable element is how the corn makes the drink feel thick like a broth.
My mother was very excited for these, buying three in one go. To her credit, they are just a giant version of a 7-11 drunk on Dundas bonafide. The dollop of sauce and jalapeno on the tip are some tasty razzle dazzle, and if you aren’t careful you’ll ambivalently make this thing vanish. If there is a complaint, it’s the one most of these stunt food share. Audacious concept, but ultimately adjusted for a perceived, Southern Ontario audience. Punches pulled in the spice department, leaving a better, grander version of it out there. I would fuck up a lamb saag version of this. The weight of the cheese and breading make it more pizza coded than roti.
Uncontroversial. And uncontroversial to say this is great. Tender pulled pork, a nice splotch of slaw smushed between two Jamaican beef patties. The plantains aren’t really bringing much to the table but you can’t fault them for keeping things interesting. If a place near me served this, I can imagine having one every few months. Thankfully you are never far from somewhere with really good beef patties, which like all proud Torontonians I fuel myself with on the regular.
Again, not sure how this one landed in all the ‘zany food previews.’ Seems like a big gesture, but standard fare conceptually. All comes down to the execution, which I’m happy to say was great. The tail was nicely cooked. Juicy, bouncy but not greasy. I’ve had plenty of fried carnival grub where you can taste that the oil is a touch too hot. Easy to imagine that scenario just obliterating a shellfish. The light powder of Old Bay is a big benefit, too.
I was actually looking forward to these. Unfortunately, these little mulched meat dumplings were easily the dud of the day. Dry. Stale. A huge disservice to both the patty and pierogi. Again, two dishes that Torontonians have on the regular. Good ones. Great ones. These are high stakes, and you lost. It would be cruel to compare the texture of the all-meat mix filling to cat food, so I’ll just couch that comment as one made by someone else at the picnic table.
No more beating around the bush: Here’s the most upsetting item I’ve had all weekend. Probably all year. And you want to know the absolute worst part? Want to hear something horrible? It rocks. This totally works. I know. I know. I spent all day going back and forth in my mind as to why. How can this heap of overkill pull it off. I had t