There seems to be a theme at the Ex this year: peanut butter and chocolate.
It may have been all about cronuts and bacon last year, but this year's food round-up is a lot less calorie-heavy and a lot more manageable for your appetite. The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) or The Ex for short, runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 1 in Toronto. Along with the annual air show, acrobatics and mechanical bull, the Ex also features a long list of deep-fried and most often, sugary foods you should only consume once a year.
New to the junk table this year are spicy peanut butter Sriracha rolls, grilled cheese with peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate deep-fried chicken with chocolate ketchup. And although there wasn't anything crazily new and flashy in the bacon zone this year (there is a bacon-wrapped corn, however), this year's big hot item has to be the Thanksgiving waffle from Fran's Restaurant in Toronto.
Last year, the debut of the cronut burger (part doughnut-croissant, part patty) resulted in at least 250 food poisoning cases, after the burger's maple bacon jam wasn't refrigerated properly. This year, the Ex plans on taking more precautions to ensure proper food preparation by having at least 20 health inspectors on site.
Past favourites heading back to the Ex this year include Tiny Tim Donuts, The Colossal Onion Epic Burgers And Waffles (minus the cronut burger) and The Funnel Cake Shop. We also hear there's a corndog funnel cake hybrid... yum.
And along with an overload of carnival favourites like cotton candy, ice cream waffle sandwiches and plenty of drinks to go around, the Ex will also host a Food Truck Frenzy (as they did last year), featuring 19 food trucks on Aug. 22 to 24.
What do you want to try this year? What will you avoid? Let us know in the comments below:
