The Florida Strawberry Festival is a staple experience, whether you live locally or are just visiting; it's not a shindig you'll want to miss!
As adults, the festival rides don't call to us as much as the (nearly) never-ending food selection does. This year we visited the Strawberry Festival with one goal in mind: Share some of the best food items, and some of the misses.
<div id="c3be0912bb716eee4ca644c1dfc4ecde4"></div>We've seen many viral items across social media and gave a few of them a try, so if you're going to the Strawberry Festival for the food, consider some of our favorite items from this year!
Top Favorite Food Items at This Year's Strawberry Festival
Everyone knows the build-your-own Strawberry Shortcake is a must-try at the festival, so here are some of the other best items we tried this year, with our short take on why we enjoyed them so much.
Chocolate Covered Strawberries
In first place, the chocolate-covered strawberries were to die for. We opted for the mix of milk chocolate and white chocolate, and they were juicy and delicious.
The coating of chocolate on the outside was plenty thick, without overpowering the strawberry itself. We started off the festival with these, and they stayed in my first-place spot the entire time.
This is a great thing to share with your date or amongst friends. We split the set of strawberries and it was the perfect bite to start off our Strawberry Festival Culinary Adventure.
Smitty's Corn Dog
Now, this corn dog we'd seen all over our social media, and we highly debated whether we would hop on the “viral” wagon and try it out.
We waited an egregious amount of time—more than an hour, that's how long the line was—for this corn dog, and I expected it to be just above average.
This was probably one of the best festival or fair corn dogs we've ever had. The outside breading was perfectly crispy buttermilk batter, and the inside, near the hotdog was soft.
Since they were slinging so many corn dogs, ours came out perfectly hot and fresh, which definitely helped, because sometimes corn dogs sit under a heat lamp for too long.
As we were eating, we noticed that the hot dog was salted between the batter, which helped give a deeper salty-sweet flavor with the buttermilk batter.
Now, while this was a fantastic corn dog, I don't know if I would justify waiting longer than 30 minutes. However, if it's your first or only time attending the festival, I'd say go for it. It'll definitely top your corn dog lineup.
Pro-Tip: There are two Smitty's Corn Dog stands; we unknowingly waited at the stand with the longest line and only figured out there was a second stand after the fact. The stand we waited at was near the 250 Wheel; there is another on the opposite side of the festival.
Strawberry Brisket Taco
In our third place spot is the Strawberry Brisket Taco. Now, this might sound a little odd, but strawberries and brisket pair pretty well together. We expected the strawberries to just be sitting on top of the taco; however, the brisket had a strawberry glaze on it, and there was a strawberry pico, which made it even better. My boyfriend really enjoyed the smoky-sweet flavor.
It's $6 for one taco, which is pretty expensive, but again, if it's your first time visiting or your only time visiting, be sure to try this out. It's definitely something totally unique to the Florida Strawberry Festival.
The Hyypo Gourmet Ice POPs
Before this, I couldn't recall the last time I had a popsicle. From childhood, I remember popsicles as being artificially flavored sugar water; however, the ice pops from Hyypo are the complete opposite of the idea I had in my head.
This great local business (with locations in Hyde Park and St. Pete) has what I would argue is the best popsicle you'll ever have. We tried the Strawberry and Cream, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Pineberry Fields.
After we tried the three, Pineberry Fields came out on top. It was perfectly refreshing and light, with chunks of white Strawberries mixed in. It's a great cooling snack under the the blazing sun!
The Strawberry Cheesecake flavor won our second place. The entire popsicle tasted exactly like Strawberry Cheesecake, and I'd even say I enjoyed it more than actual Strawberry Cheesecake itself!
We put the Strawberry and Cream popsicle in last place only because of the way the popsicle was made. The design was fun, but we ended up eating all the cream off first before we really got any of the strawberry flavor. It was still delicious, we just wished that we could've had more of the two flavors at once.
Island Soba Noodles
I'm a sucker for noodles, and this noodle cart just so happened to be next to the Smitty's corn dog stand. We stopped and got the Island Noodles with Teriyaki Chicken, and I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would.
It was perfectly saucy and salty, and the veggies were perfectly cooked with a bit of crunch left, which is what I love to contrast with the soft texture of the soba noodles.
If you're wanting to try multiple food items throughout your time at the festival, one order of these noodles is perfect to share so you can still enjoy other great items!
Fiske French Fries
I love a good french fry, and after spending the day eating a whole lot of sweets, we were craving something salty. We had Fiske french fries at the Florida State Fair, and enjoyed them just the same at the Strawberry Festival, so we are adding them to our “must get” list.
We opted for the French fry bucket, which was the way to go. It's plenty of fries to share, and the best part is that the bucket is refillable for $10.
If you also love French fries, I'd say buy the bucket earlier in the day and refill it throughout your time at the festival. It's a great way to combat all of the sweetness from the multiple strawberry items!
Strawberry festival foods we wouldn't get again
My boyfriend and I spent Sunday at the Strawberry Festival eating, and while we wanted to love everything we had, some things we simply didn't enjoy.
Strawberry Float
Many stands were selling Strawberry Floats, just like a Rootbeer Float, but we didn't quite enjoy it like we thought we would. The Strawberry soda was extremely sweet and artificially flavored, which made it hard to enjoy.
The ice cream paired with it was nothing fancy, just vanilla soft serve, which was just average. We expected the Strawberry Float to have something fancy to set it apart from the average float, but unfortunately, it didn't.
Strawberry Cobbler
When we ordered the Strawberry Brisket Taco, we also ordered a Strawberry Cobbler; however, we didn't enjoy this cobbler all that much.
There was a lot of artificially flavored strawberry jelly/sauce inside, and we had hoped there would be slices of fresh strawberry inside, but there weren't.
Strawberry Lemonade
We tried a generic Strawberry Lemonade from one of the common festival/fair stands, and it lacked the sour punch of the lemonade.
Unfortunately, the only taste we got was strawberry, but it wasn't a fresh strawberry flavor; it was more of a strawberry syrup type of flavor.
While these are just our personal takes, we hope they help direct you and your sweet date when navigating through all of the food and snack choices at the Florida Strawberry Festival!
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