Bun B’s Trill Burgers is back at the rodeo after two successful years, this time with a twist. The rapper is collaborating with Ronnie Killen of the famous Killen’s Barbecue for two new menu items. The Trillen’s Burger adds bacon, beer battered–onion rings, and Killen’s barbecue sauce to Trill’s smashburger patties. The burger is good, and the onion rings add some crunch, but I could barely detect the barbecue sauce in the mix. I also realized after the fact that the Killen’s brisket—which surely was the point of the collab?—was an add-on for $10, bringing the total to $32. I would have been fine settling for the OG Trill Burger ($20), which I’ve enjoyed on quite a few occasions.

The Trillen collaboration’s second item is more worthy of your money. These loaded fries are topped with a generous portion of tender, smoky chopped brisket that’s crisscrossed with sweet barbecue sauce, white queso, and chipotle aioli. It’s a decadent, thoroughly enjoyable mess, with pickles, jalapeños, and pickled onions adding some tang and crunch for a more well-rounded bite.

I love a sweet-and-salty pairing, especially when it’s in the form of greasy breakfast food. This new item, which won Best Food on a Stick at the Gold Buckle Foodie Awards, hit the spot overall. A hickory-smoked breakfast sausage is dipped in cake batter, rolled in bacon bits, and deep-fried. The pops come three to an order and are topped with maple syrup and powdered sugar. The fried exterior didn’t hold onto the sausage well, but the mix of flavors and textures worked.

Prolific restaurateur Benjamin Berg has been “elevating” rodeo dining since 2022 when he introduced the Ranch Saloon and Steakhouse, the event’s first standalone restaurant. This year, he added the Skillet, a counter service spot right next to the Ranch. Ever the comedian, Berg has created a Ben B Smashburger with the same ingredients as Bun B’s OG Trill Burger: double patty, onions, American cheese on a Martin’s potato roll—but without the secret Trill sauce, of course. It comes with shoestring fries, if that’s your thing. The Ben B is a solid burger and does not require standing in a long line like at Trill, but I was missing something with a little acidity to cut through the greasy meat and cheese.

Also at Ben B’s new stand, this confection is as if a churro and a croissant had a baby. And it works. It comes with a choice of vanilla cream or Nutella. I opted for the former and couldn’t really discern it, frankly, but the pastry’s flaky layers liberally coated in sugar were delightful enough to make this a hit.

This is a classic, from a longtime Minnesota State Fair exhibitor who travels south every year for the rodeo and won first place in the Gold Buckle’s Best Fried Food category this year. The crescent-shaped pie has a nicely crispy crust from being thrown in the fryer, with warm cubed cinnamony apples inside, and is accompanied by two very large scoops of vanilla and cinnamon ice cream. The Minneapple pie is a tad too sweet for my taste, but it made me nostalgic for a faraway, simpler time before we began sprinkling Cheetos on corn dogs.

I enjoyed the cheesecake part of this experience—an entire slice dipped in chocolate, what’s not to like? I am pro-bacon in desserts, but when introducing this meat in something sweet, I need it to be super-crunchy and crumbly so I’m not tasting animal fat and cake. The little bacon bits on top of this slice were a little chewy and fatty for my taste, but I happily dug into the cheesecake, and the bourbon came through in the glaze, too.

Although a new vendor last year, Asian Streetness had my favorite bite of the 2023 rodeo: a “Viet taco” with grilled pork inside a flaky, almost paratha-like tortilla. I was excited to try more of their items this year. The toppings on these nachos reminded me of the taco I love: well-seasoned grilled pork, brightness and crunch from fresh herbs and red onions, a nice sriracha mayo. The wonton chips, sadly, didn’t quite work, as they are very absorbent and the whole thing turned soggy quickly.

These fried dumplings tasted like shu mai, which I love, with a deep-fried crispy exterior instead of its traditional soft wrapper. This bite wasn’t all that complex, but it worked as a nice snack. These come six to an order and with a lot of shrimp chips, which felt a little like filler to me. If you’re visiting Asian Streetness, I suggest ordering the Viet taco.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t excited to try this one. Bubblegum soda? Must we? This float sure looks the part, with a generous dollop of cotton candy and two lollies. The soda actually just tasted like fountain soda Sprite with some pink coloring, which I wasn’t mad at—way more refreshing and tastier than bubblegum, in my opinion. Sadly, the wrapper stuck to one of the lollipops, leaving tiny bits of unretrievable plastic on it. This one’s good for the ’gram, for sure.

This bite is the equivalent of the Instagram-reality meme. An order gives you three small, thin pucks of fried mac and cheese with only one teeny speck of brisket per puck. However, I did enjoy the slight kick at the end from the addition of cayenne. Note: the fried brisket mac and cheese is only available at the Rodeo Plaza location of Yoakum, not the one inside NRG Center.

I am sad to report that the Gold Buckle’s Best New Flavor is flavorless. You’ll certainly receive enough food for your money, at least rodeo math–wise, as the spud this comes with was larger than my face. It was stuffed with corn chips, plenty of cheese, jalapeños, and a very small amount of what tasted like canned chili. Great for carb-loading, but was disappointingly very under seasoned.

As I mentioned previously, bacon in sweets needs to be crunchy, not fatty and chewy, which unfortunately this stick was (pictured above). I thought the chocolate drizzled on it would be tempered, giving it a nice snap, but it was just liquid, adding to my disappointment. I couldn’t take a second bite.

RodeoHouston’s promotional materials had promised a new item called “Texas Torpedo,” but didn’t indicate which vendor was serving it. I always like to put myself in the shoes of an average rodeogoer, so I sought to find a tiny bacon-wrapped jalapeño in the giant carnival haystack. After some circling with no luck, I stopped by the information booth, staffed with super-friendly and ready-to-help stewards who unfortunately couldn’t decipher the confusing written instructions they had been given about the location of this Texas Torpedo.

I was about to give up, but on my way out of the carnival grounds, I saw a giant sign with what sure looked like a bacon-wrapped jalapeño (pictured above), except it was called a “Texas Twinkie.” This must be it. I proceeded to pay $16 for two jalapeños—wrapped in bacon and stuffed with a moderate amount of cheese and brisket—that were charred at the ends and crunchy-raw in the middle. It was time to go home.