Growing up, one of my favorite movies was the animated version of Charlotte's Web. One of my favorite scenes from the film is when the rat, Templeton, goes around the fair at night, collecting left-over food scraps and garbage. He eats everything in sight, singing all the while about the fair being a "smorgasbord, orgasbord, orgasbord." At the end of the night, he returns to the pen where Wilbur is being kept, proclaiming "What a night! Never have I seen such leavings! Everything well ripened, seasoned with the passage of time and the heat of the day. Oh, it was rich, my friends. Rich!" Well, there's no better way to describe the way I felt when I returned home from the State Fair on Friday night. I was disgustingly full of the greasiest food on Earth but incredibly satisfied at the same time. Like Templeton, my husband and I (and fellow fair-going companions) really partook in the "smorgasbord" - we consumed a corn dog, fried gator on a stick, mini donuts, funnel cake, bratwurst, and a massive turkey leg (which was delicious, by the way!). It was like Thanksgiving dinner, but less nutritionally complete. Of course, we also had some alcoholic beverages - the drinks we tried were all very expensive ($8.50 for beer and up to $12 for a mixed drink) but we were pleasantly surprised by how strong they were. No watered-down drinks for this crowd of fair-goers! Another totally hedonistic experience at the state fair was the fabulous (and totally free!) Old School Jam concert. We rocked out to Coolio, Club Noveau, Climax, and Naughty by Nature (Ton-Loc was too cool for (old) school and skipped out). Maybe they weren't as good as back in the day, but we all had so much fun re-living the good old days and dancing off all of that ridiculously caloric food! The only less-than-fun part of the whole concert was the grumpy people behind us who told us to sit down (have they ever been to a concert?!), but their bad attitude was the only downer of the whole experience. If you haven't been to the state fair yet AND you like eating lots of junky food in a no-frills environment, I recommend you check it out. You have until November 2, 2008 to do so. I believe you can still see Meatloaf and LL Cool J if you are interested in a concert. To save money on parking, park in the Capitol building lot (northeast corner of 19th Ave and Jefferson) and take the free shuttle (runs every fifteen minutes). Just don't have too much fun or you might almost miss the last shuttle like we did!

positive

Yeah its a chain, but it has an independently owned quality to it. Friendly staff.

positive

Good basic Mexican Food. Nothing fancy and sometimes that is a good thing. Service is great, prices are reasonable, an the food is exactly what you expect. Full drink menu that you would expect to get at a basic Mexican restaurant. When your in the mood for good basic Mexican food this is the place.

positive

.. And they only get the second star because of the service department. We had two miserable trips to this dealership before we bought our Volvo at another dealership. Sales person was bordering on rude and acted like he was doing us a favor by showing us a car. When it came to the money factor, riiiiiiiidiculous. Hedged and hummed and did the 'manager' dance to the point of illness. Just not worth it. We don't begrudge them making money but we weren't willing to pay more for the car than our research suggested it was worth. And they were not pleasant to deal with. We have the car serviced there because of the convenience of their location [which makes me grimmace] and its been just the opposite experience. Competent and polite.
negative