Twins 2017 Season Preview: The new food at Target Field

Every year the Twins hold a Media Day at Target Field where they unveil all the new food offerings for the upcoming season and let the local media try it. The Twins had this annual taste-testing for the 2017 season today, and I wasn’t invited. Whatever, Twins, I didn’t want to taste your stupid food anyway.

Among the new offerings at Target Field this year are vegan bratwursts, various mixtures of crap in bowls, and a flatbread sandwich with meat and eggplant.

Oh, and they upped beer prices again.

Since I didn’t actually get to go taste any of this stuff, I went with Plan B for writing this post: I didn’t eat anything all morning, waited for pictures of the new food to start rolling through on social media, and started reviewing. I’m frickin’ starving right now and so ready to dish some hot takes.

Vegan Sriracha Brats and Italian Sausages

So these are what vegan wieners look like. Don’t ask me what they’re made out of, but it looks sort of like the padding from inside an Ikea couch cushion. I also don’t get where the sriracha comes in, because I don’t see anything red here. Is it baked right into the fake sausage? That’s what they do with vegan sausages, right? Bake them?

One of these puppies will cost you a cool $12.50, and while I might be hungry, I’m not that hungry.

Hot Indian Foods Chicken Tikka Salad

This looks to be the same thing as the Chicken Tikka already sold at Target Field, but with kale instead of rice. If you’re a health nut, maybe this does it for you. The random strings of cheese on top look a little weird, but I’m never complaining about the addition of cheese to anything.

A bowl of this is also $12.50, and in my opinion, a much better option than the vegan sriracha dog thing that’s the same price.

Summit Beer Cheese Pretzels

Well this is completely unnecessary. You can already buy giant pretzels at Target Field, just like you can at any other ballpark in America. It’s one of those ubiquitous and uneventful ballpark fares you can usually buy without it costing and arm and a leg. Why would I pay who knows how much more for this yuppified version? I can just pour some of my beer into the the regular, low-price cheese sauce product if I want to be fancy, thank you very much.

I don’t even know the price of this because you can apparently only get it in the season-ticket holders club. That’s how much you have to pay for this stupid pretzel.

Kramarczuk's The Kurd-Marczuk

Here we have a little twist on poutine, except it has sausage in it and a cute name. It doesn’t look incredibly appetizing in the picture, but I’d eat the hell out of this right now. Fried cheese, people. You can’t mess that up.

The price listed for this on the Twins website is “$9.50/$20”, so it sounds like you can get the little helmet sized portion as seen above or a freakin’ regular sized helmet full of this stuff. Amazing.

The Cookie Cart

Target Field will now be sporting The Cookie Cart on the weekends that sells—you guessed it—cookies! As you can see, they have all the cookies broken up into little chunks, but I’m assuming the cart will actually be selling full cookies. If you’re into cookies, get your tickets to a weekend game at Target Field now—The Cookie Cart is coming!!!

I don’t know what kinds of cookies they’ll have, but they’ll cost you $3 or $8 depending on the size or amount you want.

Barrio Chicken Tacos

I can’t decide what I think about these. They look good, but the colors are so bright they also look almost fake? This would be a time when being able to actually taste the food would come in handy.

Since an order of these is only $9, I very well may be tasting these sometime this year.

Barrio Chicken Burrito

In addition to chicken tacos, there will be a Barrio Chicken Burrito this year, and holy hell I just realized how freakin’ hungry I am.

This thing will cost you $11, which might be an okay ballpark deal depending on the actual size. However, you could always just stop at Chipotle before the game and bring one of their most likely bigger and cheaper burritos with you to eat.

4 Bells Shrimp Boil

I guess this is suppose to be some sort of southern-type dish thing. It has rice (I think?), corn, and shrimp. I don’t like shrimp regularly, let alone shrimp sold on a portable cart at the ballpark, so I don’t think this one is for me.

It’s a good thing I don’t like shrimp too, because a bowl of this costs $14.50. Do they boil the shrimp in liquid gold? I don’t get it.

Andrew Zimmern's Canteen Sloppy Ko

Now we’re cooking with gas, baby!

Instead of a Sloppy Jo, it’s a “Sloppy Ko”, because it is made with Korean style BBQ, kimichi, and a hard boiled egg. It looks amazing. It looks like someone actually tried to come up with a good idea instead of just an idea. Just look at it. Oh my god I am losing my damn mind over here.

One of these costs $14.50 and oh my god shut up and take my money.

Andrew Zimmern's Canteen Skewers

I guess these are the flatbread things with eggplant and whatever that I mentioned earlier. It looks like there is a little left to be desired here, but it could taste good theoretically I guess. I mean eggplant at a baseball game? That’s new.

The problem is that these also cost $14.50, and if you’re at the Andrew Zimmern stand with $14.50 why the hell would you get this instead of the Sloppy Ko?

Murray's Smoked Beef Sandwich

They used to have a stand for freshly carved beef sandwiches at Target Field, but I think they got rid of it. In any case, it’s coming back now and holy hell it looks better than ever. I don’t know if it looks better just because it now has the Murray’s name attached to it, or because my neighbors can probably hear my stomach rumbling right now, but dear god I could eat about five of these.

This sandwich will also cost you $14.50, and because my Mom will problem ask, no, I don’t know if they come with the little piece of garlic-y toast.

Andrew Zimmern's Canteen Frozen White Chocolate Mousse

If you’re looking for something sweet and you’re not a cookie fanatic specifically at a weekend game, you can try out the new frozen white chocolate mousse. I dunno what you think, but this sounds a little more complicated that I need my ballpark desert to be. I’d probably rather just get cheese curds or a giant pretzel.

At $7.50, the price isn’t too bad though.