ST PAUL, Minn. — Some new food vendors used the Minnesota State Fair to introduce international cuisine.
Owner of Kosharina Egyptian Cuisine Salma Habib and Executive Chef Thabt Mohamed are proud to bring their culture to the great Minnesota get-together.
“The Koshari is like a street food dish that a lot of people know and eat in Egypt,” Habib said. “This is something very unique. The good thing about it, all the staff at work back there are Egyptian so they know they literally have the real secret of bringing something from Egypt to here,” Habib said.
It takes years for some people to get into the fair, but Kosharina did it in its first year of business. Habib said they’re the only ones offering Egyptian cuisine.
“It’s always been a dream, we have worked so hard to get into the state Fair,” she said.
Mohamed has run other food trucks and has applied to be a vendor at the fair. He got turned down every time except this year.
“My dream from 1979,” he said. “I come here a couple of times before, and I like it and I watch everybody, and why not be here? I love work, working hard.”
That’s the year he first applied. Now, he savors every moment working the fair. He works from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day at the fair. Habib works 6 a.m. – 11 p.m.
They said everything has been running smoothly and they haven’t encountered any major hiccups.
It’s also Paella Depot’s first taste of the fair.
“Paella is this amazing, caramelized rice dish,” said Owner Doug Huemoeller. “It’s rice like you’ve never had before.”
Huemoeller said they are the only ones serving this Spanish cuisine at the fair. He’s been making paella for over two decades and has been trying to get into the fair for almost that long.
“It’s really tough. We’ve actually been applying for about 15 years,” he said. “It’s a combination of the fair having the right space for the right vendor. They are looking for things that are new and innovative.”
He said the demand has been so high they had to fly in more rice overnight to make it through the weekend. It’s a specialty rice they order from Spain, so the rice you get at the store won’t cut it. He said they were able to get that same specialty rice shipped from a warehouse in California.
Huemoeller said part of working the fair is being flexible and adjusting when it’s necessary.
“We change our operations daily based on what happened the day before, so changing staffing, changing our production to make sure that we can keep up every day, so there’s always something new,” Huemoeller said. “We get here about 7 o’clock in the morning to set up. We get home around midnight, but we still have to sit and go through and decide ‘hey, what are we going to change tomorrow,” just to be better.”
The challenge for these food vendors is getting people to experience food they’ve never had before, but what they quickly realized wasn’t a big hurdle they had to jump.
“We are having so much. People here are very nice and friendly,” Habib said.
“It has been incredible,” Huemoeller said. “We’re ready to go another 12 days.”