The 2021 Fresno Rogue Festival has come and gone, it’s virtual shows departed, but I still have my memories...of food. Usually, I write about all the Tower District restaurants I go to during the festival. Instead, I picked up meals on the way home from work or threw something together at home. This episode of The Great Food Search will follow the journey of what I ate during Virtual Rogue 2021.
It happened. My daughter and I got sick of our own cooking. After three months of “It Came From My Kitchen,” we (and my wife) couldn’t take any more variations of Slow-Cooker Surprise and “Stuff Added to Packaged Mixes,” but our editor didn’t want us going to restaurants and dining like nothing was wrong with the world, even if they were open for business. For that reason, this Great Food Search features take-out food. (Lorie wanted places that deliver, too, but I have a perfectly rational fear of strangers coming to my door.)
After stuffing myself with ice cream in June, I turned the Great Food Search toward a more healthy highway of food—salads. Some people look down on salads as that green stuff they have to chomp through before they can really eat something, but the dishes I am about to introduce to you are more than a mouthful—this is FOOD!
In summer, thoughts turn to ice cream, and the Great Food Search has industriously worked its way through ice cream shop after ice cream shop, just to let you know what’s out there. Here are some of the usual suspects…and a few of the unusual ones.
The Rogue Festival: the crown performing-arts jewel of Fresno’s Tower District, 9 days (or 10, if you count the Rogue Teaser, which I do) filled with music, dance, theatre, magic, comedy, and other things. I managed to see twenty-five shows this year, dashing from venue to venue to see as much as I could…but a chubby little reviewer’s gotta eat, right? Where can you grab some food when you’re on your way to somewhere else? Is there any place for a quick bite to eat? Let me put it this way—I did not lose weight during Rogue 2019.
When someone you love is in the hospital, you want to be near them. When you’re near them, you still have to eat…and you shouldn’t steal food from a sick person. At Fresno’s St. Agnes Hospital, one of the options is the One Main Café & Grill.
Drive into downtown Kingsburg on a rainy night and it’s dark…really dark. Hey, there’s a light over there, down the block from the library! What is it?
Fugazzi’s.
What do you want in a restaurant?
Good food? Of course.
Wood-fired cooking? Tell me more.
Decent price? That would be nice.
Inviting atmosphere? That helps.
Top-drawer entertainment? Ooh.
A great view. Yeah, I’d like that.
Tamales—friendly little bundles of cornmeal and good stuff, wrapped and steamed in corn husks. Yummy stuff, and that is the subject of this Great Food Search. I go out to restaurants and other food venues, reporting what is best and what’s the rest.
Baseball, fairs, barbecues…Homes of the Hot Dog.
One of the great American comfort foods, I loved those frankfurters and wieners nestled in their buns, squiggles of mustard and ketchup making racing stripes along the meat. Today, the Great Food Search seeks hot dogs in the wilds of…Fresno?
