Here’s a tease: The Enrique Olvera cherry cola collaboration is one of the best-tasting edibles I’ve tried…ever! I wanted to write about it last year but it sold out!

I might even pop a 5 mg gummy tonight while watching the Winter Olympics!

But first…

Five quick things!

One: My heart goes out to the 300 journalists who lost their livelihoods when Jeff Bezos and his (former) publisher cut a third of The Washington Post’s newsroom. Among the layoffs were Aaron Hutcherson, a writer and recipe developer, and Daniela Galarza, author of the acclaimed “Eat Voraciously” newsletter. Related: Galarza’s WaPo column on the word “exotic” is absolutely essential reading. You can donate to The Post layoff fund right here, and you can still donate to the Vox Media Union layoff fund here. It’s tough out there for journalists. And I can’t tell you how angry I am about these cuts….I feel this one in my bones.

Two: Go spend a few minutes with this sharp Babbo writeup by NYT chief critic Ligaya Mishan. One of the best lines: “Despite the baggage and the orange-Croc-ed albatross, this is prime intellectual property, Babbo as Barbie. Keeping the name is a promise: The song remains the same. But should it?”

Three: My fellow contributing critic at the NYT, , awards two stars to La Chêne, which I’m dying to visit. Click through for lots of fun imagery of elegant pithiviers and folks snapping iPhone pics of every oligarch’s favorite liquid gold: Chateau d’Yquem.

Four: Here’s Minnesota Star Tribune critic Raphael Brion with a look at Eat Street restaurants amid the ongoing ICE surge…and in the aftermath of the killing of Alex Pretti.

Five: It’s been fun to see more big outlets bring consumables coverage into the mainstream. I loved this Lizzie O’Leary essay in Slate about how the journalist used 1 mg Rose edibles to cope with the anxiety inherent in a cancer diagnosis. She also writes about how a little bit of THC can help “quiet the horrifying drumbeat of authoritarianism.”

Rose Los Angeles: The Definitive Re-Review

What to order and what to avoid, including:

• Enrique Olvera’s cherry cola gummies

• Virgilio Martinez’s “Magical Grapes” delights

• Higher dose 10 mg edibles from Rose

• Thoughts on the $900 Rose Club

• Bonus review: Enrique Olvera’s sincronizada sandwich at Esse!!!

Read more

This long column is paywalled, but in celebration of Tax Day, new annual subscribers can save nearly $90 over the monthly rate for the next three days! Do it!!!

Scroll down past the review of Golden HOF for our take on Sundae School’s new gummies.

Ryan!!!

Subscribe now

The Fried Chicken You Need in Your Life

I can’t stop thinking about the double fried chicken at Golden HOF, Sam Yoo’s new restaurant near Rockefeller Center.

It’s that good.

I dropped by the other night with a buddy from Oakland. He ate his chicken silently. And I kept blabbering on about it. That’s what happens when you hang with a critic.

Like with any respectable Korean fry, the skin came puffed up. But this was puffier than elsewhere. This was video game puffy. Nuclear puffy. The drumsticks looked like they fell into a Marvel wormhole and turned themselves into exaggerated, animated, superhero chicken parts.

Each wing was so big that I mistook them for breasts and thighs. Each bite was 70 percent batter, 30 percent meat. That’s a serious ratio.

A dusting of cumin, green Szechuan peppercorns, and citric acid enrobed the wings. One day, I’ll inject this serum into my body and I’ll magically transform into a very delicious Captain America.

The skin crackled. The spices smelled of sweet earth. And the acidity electrified my tongue. It was like biting into a candy apple seasoned with Tajin.

People wait for weeks to get a good table at Coqodaq, where they ‘gram photos of bronzed nuggets topped with caviar. But Golden HOF sells some of the city’s best fried chicken for just $20. And you can walk in without a wait. For now.

New York’s Korean Pubs, An Appreciation…

Fried chicken as amazing as this is a true feat.

It’s also what you’d expect from one of the city’s top chefs. Yoo, late of Momofuku Ko, is the guy behind Golden Diner. That’s a chill spot where the honey butter pancakes went viral after the influencers got a hold of them.

I hear they’re good pancakes!

But let me tell you what’s truly majestic about Golden HOF, a space that Yoo took over from his parents…

Behind the Paywall: Golden HOF Review, Sundae School Gummies

• How to ace your next raw bar order at Golden HOF

• What Korean wings, beers, and burgers to get at Golden HOF

• Sundae’s Schools kimchi, matcha, and golden pear gummies, reviewed

• Guide: What to order at six casual Korean pubs around NYC

• Notes on this weekend’s Sundae School pop-up in Nolita

Read more

Welcome to The Hi 21, our guide to America’s best edibles. Let’s eat well and chill TF out. We all need a break right now.

My column is the result of purchasing nearly 50 different gummies and drinks in NYC, Denver, Portland, and Los Angeles. This guide is paywalled, but to help you save, I’m extending my winter discount for a few more days!

Subscribe now

First, a little Sutton Story…

In October 2007, this young restaurant critic had his first edible.

It did not go well.

I was hanging out at a house party in Park Slope. And my buddy was handing out pot cookies. This was the sort of thing people did before it was legal to sell designer edibles out of chic boutiques on the Bowery.

I was 28, a late starter. Like so many other “international affairs” grads, I was planning to join the foreign policy community, and if you were gonna work for Uncle Sam, you had to play by his rules. Weed testing was an inevitability.

Until it wasn’t.

When I became a critic — a better meal plan than the government cafeteria — cannabis came back on the menu. And so on that particular autumn night, I ate a small piece of my buddy’s pot cookie. And then, I had another. And then I had a third. And maybe a fourth?

“Man, what are you doing?,” my friend said to me.

I didn’t get why he was rationing out those little bites. I imagined he was breaking them off from a larger Mother Cookie, something the circumference of a small softball, in the vein of Mrs. Fields. So I had more!

Reader: There was no larger cookie. Those tiny pieces were the cookies.

As I left, my friend put his arm around me and uttered a line I’d never forget.

“Ryan, you have fifteen good minutes left. Enjoy them.”

I won’t get into what I experienced fifteen minutes later. Or seven hours later. I watched the sun come up as I clung onto my sanity — with a bottle of Venezuelan rum.

It would be 12 years before I had an edible again. But when I did, it was glorious. I tried it out with that same buddy at an old Italian joint, a place where cops and firefighters used to go for a night out. We drank a lot of wine and we laughed a lot.

The story reminds me of that old food critic’s rule. Don’t give something a bad review after a single visit — especially when everything is your own fault anyway!

I really like edibles.

I love how they make me crave hot slice pizza and cold vanilla ice cream. I love how they help me focus on what’s in front of me — rather than what’s on my phone — during a long tasting menu.

I love how they make me laugh.

But there’s a larger story going on here. Recreational marijuana is legal in 24 states, with more to come. And a loophole in the farm bill has created a boom in hemp gummies, with fancy purveyors like Rose and Sundae School shipping them off to prohibition states like Texas and Florida.

Globally, this is already a $12 billion industry. And there’s a whole lot of edibles to choose from. So I put together a list of my favorites. Enjoy!

Behind the Paywall: The Hi 21, America’s Best Edibles

Scroll down for…

• Notes on microdosing

• Super tasty Korean American mochi edibles

• The best edible collaborations with cool chefs

• My fave gummies for nighttime chilling and snacking

• The best mail-order gummies: from affordable to luxe

• Delicious creamsicle sodas and vanilla colas with THC!

Read more

Subscribe now

On Friday, I hit my reset button.

I watched some cool performance art. I drank some Madre mezcal. And I sipped a baggie laced with blood orange, cardamom, and cannabis. All the better for zoning in on the hypnotic contortions of Flexn dance. And feeling the sonic booms of live taiko drumming.

We’re all coping with a weird month in different ways. Attending Art Bath, an experimental salon that a few of my friends run, is one of those ways for me.

Doing a little THC is another.

Yes, I generally prefer cannabis at home, while watching the Knicks blow a late lead. Or I’ll take an edible before a fancy restaurant, to zero in on all the flavors.

But Cann, the brand I’ve been enjoying lately, is going for something different. It wants to get cannabis off the couch and into the parties. And one of my jobs as a critic is to meet restaurants and other businesses where they’re at. So I partied.

Tough job, I have!

Cann: One of the country’s best selling Cannabis drinks

Maybe you’re surprised I’m writing about Cann.

Whenever possible, I try to highlight smaller brands, like the Latin-leaning NY Finca, or the Brooklyn-based Flyers. But sometimes, it’s also nice to review what folks are using across the country. It’s nice to review Hollywood blockbusters like Cann.

The company, founded by two guys who used to work at Bain (not quite your hippie uncle who makes hash brownies) is raking in tens of millions of dollars in annual sales. The duo produce some of the country’s best-selling THC drinks. They’re fizzy and refreshing tonics that recall White Claws.

But unlike White Claw, Canns actually taste good.

Flavors include orange cardamom (a fancy Orangina), lemon lavender (a trippy San Pellegrino), grapefruit rosemary (more fruity than savory), and a pricier “reserve” flavor laced with fragrant yuzu and elderflower. They’re all quite wonderful and trippy. And expensive too, costing up to $10 apiece.

They come in big cans, small cans, lite-cans, and TSA-friendly weed pouches you can squirt into your economy class apple juice as your flight hits turbulence over the Rockies. Those low-dose “Roadie” pouches — each one contains just two milligrams of THC — are what I snuck into that Art Bath party. I drank two of them quickly, and within a half hour, the hemp-based weed was hitting me hard. By the time Shantel Martin started a live drawing, it was as if I was existing in a waking dream. Pretty groovy.

And then, I snapped out of it, which is good because I actually needed to talk to people!

The importance of vibes

Brands like to sell cannabis for all sorts of curiously specific moods. For morning energy. For arousal. For brainpower. For happiness. For recovery. For balance. For sleep. For deep sleep. Pretty advanced science, this marijuana business, lol. I’ve even seen ads that push cannabis as an antidote to the monotony of running, which totally makes sense….if you’re okay getting high while dodging automotive traffic.

The folks behind Cann don’t make specific healing promises. Rather, they go for something broader. They want you to enjoy these drinks socially.

Ads and social content show folks drinking these tonics at Montauk parties, Christmas parties, state fairs, and on rooftops. I watched people in bikinis drinking Hi Boys in Aspen hot tubs and on ski lifts with the safety bar still up (Johnny Knoxville would be proud). One Cann post suggests how you definitely shouldn’t sneak Roadie pouches into a festival (wink), while another shows people squirting THC into dirty martinis and margaritas.

Already a “little buzzed” like Timothée hanging out with Kylie? Have a Cann. In the mood for group activities? Play beer pong with Cann.

This is no small matter. Critics try hard to pin down the vibe of a restaurant; it can play as big of a role as the menu in reflecting what everyone at a venue experiences. Vibes are an alchemy that extend beyond simple equations of good design and delicious food. Vibes comprise the pulse of a clientele and the moment of time we live in. They also include ubiquitous social media stories and ads. Alas.

So! You might not order the halal cart chicken at Tatiana at David Geffen Hall. But you will listen to hip hop and feel the communal energy of well-dressed strangers drinking haute nutcrackers under blue lights. This is dinner as a cool, clubby antidote to the pomp of Lincoln Center.

You might not be able to afford too many supplemental nigiri at Sushi Sho, but you will witness rich folks tacking on hundreds of dollars in excess toro charges. This is dinner as a private shopping experience for your local oligarchs.

And while you might not end up ordering the same strong Cann varieties that I love, you’ve almost certainly been bombarded with the company’s “Summer of Squirt” ads. You’ve seen influencers pre-gaming for fashion week with this stuff. You’ve seen the new ad showing a young dude mixing his Cann with Celsius, the energy drink behind the Jake Paul-Tyson fight.

Cann’s vibes recall a swank riff on a beer commercial, ads that focus more on lifestyle than flavor. Cann’s vision of cannabis is something that you casually enjoy with your tanned besties at Coachella, rather than something that gets you f&cked up while streaming “Rings of Power.” It’s a drink that doesn’t get you “that high,” per the advertising copy. It’s a no hangover drink that’s a prudent part of a longer night of boozing, rather than a replacement for boozing. It’s a drink that’s a chic answer to America’s favorite party drug that starts with the letter C.

Coors Light.

This is all to say: Cann very much wants to play a much, much bigger role in our life over the next decade.

What to know before using Cann at a party

So, is Cann really something I’d drink instead of a light beer at the ballgame? Is it something I’d take after a gin & tonic or two at happy hour?

Maybe, yes!

What’s great about these drinks is that most of them contain just 2 mg each of THC, quite a bit less than the edibles commonly sold out of dispensaries. And with a Cann, you have to finish the entire beverage to get a full dose! That might sound super obvious, so let me explain: With half a gummy, you’ll probably be getting an entire evening’s worth of cannabis in a few seconds. It’s all you need. But with Cann, you can have one eight-ounce serving, and then you can have another. And you’ll still probably be in good shape, even after a nice daiquiri. I appreciate that.

What I also appreciate is that Cann’s “hemp high” is lighter and more polite high than the richer, more layered rushes I get from marijuana-based edibles.

After taking those Roadie packets last Friday, I could feel the reverberations of a massive taiko drum massaging my inner intestines. Thoughts of deadlines disappeared; my mind was present for a once-in-a-lifetime performance. This wasn’t cannabis that dominated my evening; it hung around for an hour or two then faded into the background.

But let me pass along two quick things to keep in mind:

First: Cann Drinks are super crushable! There’s no alcohol or bitterness to keep you from guzzling the whole can in a few minutes on a warm night. Go slow if you’re new to this stuff.

Second: Cannabis isn’t alcohol! Cann likes to compare its chief product to a beer, and its Hi Boy to a martini. Not a bad point of reference! Thing is, THC has very different effects than alcohol. It’s a psychoactive chemical that can amp up your hunger levels, induce giggle fits, and make your limbs feel like they’re being weighed down by a gravity blanket. I find that Cann’s smart dosing generally keeps most of those effects within reasonable limits.

But some folks might find that any cannabis product makes them feel decidedly anti-social. And indeed, if you hook me up with a Hi Boy and a strong IPA, you’ll see me putting a serious dent in a pint of Haagen Dazs before zonking out to an episode of “Cross.” The gravitational pull of the couch is powerful!

Sometimes, the party vibes need to chill out.

For Subscribers: Reviews of Heroes, Eel Bar, and the Full Cann FAQ

• Eel Bar: Why this might be the city’s top burger of 2024 ($28)

• Heroes: Why you need to try the charcoal beef ($20) and big chicken ($65)

• FAQ: Everything you need to know about Cann drinks

Eel Bar: One of NYC’s best new burgers

Read more

Subscribe now

Demo in the West Village wasn’t on my radar.

I’m not sure how that’s possible. It occupies a light-filled space smack in the middle of Carmine Street. It’s run by alums of Wildair and Contra. And fellow critics like Robert Sietsema seem to like this…wine bar.

So be it. There are lots of great new restaurants out there, and perhaps the human brain only has so much capacity for recognizing yet another wine bar.

In the end, it was a buddy’s Insta story that caught my attention. My old Eater colleague Dan Geneen ‘grammed a pic of Demo’s lobster au poivre the other week.

Good shellfish usually gets my attention. As does creamy peppercorn sauce.

A few days later, I dropped by Demo and ordered that lobster. At the front bar, pretty folks finished off their buttery flounder meuniere. At the L-shaped back counter, the air smelled of pasta sauce and blowtorched bananas. And servers roamed the room, pouring cloudy orange wines into nice stems.

Everyone here was eating full meals, which means this isn’t really a wine bar, at least not in the strict European sense. Then again, stateside restaurateurs use that term so loosely that we’re probably only a few years away from The Smith rebranding itself as a wine bar on account of the fact that it probably has someone on staff who googled “vendange.”

In Paris — and I’ll admit Matthew Schneier beat me to this argument — the local bar à vins is where you can drop by after your 35-hour work week (lol) and eat some white beans, standing up, with a little pour of natural wine. This won’t cost a lot. In New York, by contrast, wine bars are what we call restaurants that don’t serve a lot of martinis. They’re places where you make a reservation and spend $150 on a light dinner for one. And you can probably order a martini anyway.

That said, Demo, by chef Quang “Q” Nguyen and beverage director Jacob Nass, ranks with Claud as one of our wine bars of the moment.

Crab casino doesn’t taste anything like clams casino, a classic pairing of bivalves, bacon, and peppers. No matter, because the crustacean here is pretty close to perfect, a pillow of sweet blue crab under a nest of shaved pecorino sardo. And that lobster au poivre? The meat is grilled over coals and the sauce is spiked with roe. The fries don’t come with mayo, so you drag them through the au poivre instead. I’m so glad I viewed my buddy’s Instagram story about Demo, even though my two-course dinner ran $180 after tax and tip, lol. That’s New York!

It’s Sunday, 15 September 2024, and False Fall has ended with these 80 degree temps. So we’re going to celebrate with a guide to Flyers, a Brooklyn-based company that ships tasty cannabis cocktails across the country! We’re also publishing a few words on the year’s top big lobster dishes: the au poivre at Demo, the herby lobster at Penny, and the aromatic ceviche at Quique Crudo.

The summer of shellfish continues!!!

The delicious boom in cannabis cocktails!

I was researching a marijuana drinks story for The Information a few months ago when I made a tragic mistake: I clicked on an Instagram ad.

For the next week, just about every cannabis company in the known universe flooded my social media feeds.

There were tonics, seltzers, ciders, and waters. I discovered tinctures you apply with eyedroppers, elixirs you jigger out like booze, and mists that you spray underneath your tongue — a little breath freshener for your mind.

Just about every ad promised zero hangovers.

In Colorado, I tracked down “enhanced” riffs on Dr. Pepper (sadly, sold out). In New York, I ordered smooth nitro cold brew laced with marijuana and 225 mg of caffeine. How was the coffee? It was like popping a Xanax before hopping into the cockpit of a Boeing 737 and flying it through extreme turbulence.

Perhaps you remember when White Claw was peaking. Well, you’ll soon see these everywhere too. How do I know this? Because yearly sales of these drinks clock in at half a billion dollars. And because legalization is continuing apace; you can already get hemp cocktails like Flyers and Cann shipped to prohibition states like Texas and Florida. Heck, daily marijuana users already outnumber daily drinkers, according to one survey — a trend driven in part by a younger generation looking to cut back on alcohol.

And guess what? Most of what I’ve sampled in the THC beverage space has been quite delicious. In fact, the “zero proof” Apéro spritz I tried from Flyers was even better than the real thing — with stronger side effects!!

We’ll all be seeing more of these cocktails on our Insta feeds quite soon.

After the Paywall: Everything to know about Flyers THC Cocktails

• Why the Flyers Apéro Spritz and Ol’ Fashioned are so good!

• Where to get Flyers and how much they cost.

• Review: the $84 lobster au poivre at Demo

• Review: the big lobster at Penny and the lobster ceviche at Quique

Your Cheat Sheet guide to Flyers!!!

Before we get too far into the weeds, let me just tell you why I love these zero-proof cocktails, maybe even more so than their boozier analogues….

Read more

Subscribe now

Two hours at the high-limit sushi lounge

Minced lobster with dashi. That’s course No. 6, a coastal breeze that smells of sweet shellfish and bitter citrus.

Red uni from Kyushu. That’s course No. 11, nature’s own flan, packing the flavor of dark molasses. I’ve never tried urchin like it.

But for some of the well-heeled patrons at Sushi Sho, dinner doesn’t really get going until later, after the formal omakase ends. Allow me to explain.

Around course nineteen, roughly 80 or 90 minutes into the meal, my server drops off a menu with eye-popping nigiri prices. This means the casual okonomi service is about to begin. It also means the $450 that I pre-paid for dinner has already been depleted.

I’m old enough to remember when that tidy sum actually got you a full sushi meal.

Will you ante up? Of course you will. No one skips the a la carte extras at Sho, Keiji Nakazawa’s mesmerizing (and shockingly inaccessible) Midtown restaurant. It’s instantly one of my favorite sushi spots anywhere in the world.

Though it’s unclear if I’ll ever return.

The initial courses leading up to this moment, nearly two dozen of them, are as tiny as they are thrilling. A sardine maki with seasoned vegetables — it looks like an organic microprocessor from the future — is no larger than a quarter. And that lobster I was telling you about is no bigger than a domino.

Those dishes were just priming our palates.

The room turns from hushed to bustling as the okonomi ceremony kicks off. Chefs gather at distinct points behind the hinoki bar, a spacious semi-circle that seats 10. And they hold up butchered slabs of seafood whose price, per square inch, is as exorbitant as anything at your friendly neighborhood Fendi store.

Kisu! Japanese Whiting. Shinko! Young gizzard shad. Kinmedai kawa! Seared golden eye snapper skin. The chefs announce each of the 29 or so selections. A waiter standing nearby offers simultaneous commentary, as if a museum curator were quietly podcasting into your ear. And patrons in unremarkable button downs watch the show.

How fun.

Less fun are the prices. The cost is $20 to $50 extra, per bite. This is easily the city’s most expensive rare fish market for individual buyers.

A little context: At some of New York’s top sushi spots, the meal is over when the chef decides the meal is over. But at a few of these institutions, patrons get a chance to revisit nigiri from earlier in the evening, usually for a few more dollars more.

Sho takes things further. The first half of dinner is designed to ensure you’ll have ample stomach space for the optional courses. And the extra nigiri aren’t about hitting rewind, or repeating courses from thirty minutes ago. This is about sampling an almost entirely new assortment of fish.

If Sushi Sho were a baseball game, the okonomi wouldn’t be “overtime;” this would be charging the fans extra to watch innings seven through nine. So be it.

I look on as a few high-rolling Londoners order about 10 pieces each, including the shimofuri, a rare part of the o-toro whose white marbling is so intense it recalls a dusting of snow. Our chef cuts the flesh into paper-thin rectangles, as if he were assembling an Iberico platter — before placing three slices atop a single mound of vinegared rice. Cost: $50 for ten seconds of pleasure.

If my mental math is right, those British gents spent an extra $400 (each) on sushi, nearly doubling the price of their meal. A waiter even told me that every now and then, someone will order every supplement. Do so at your own risk, as that involves nearly 50 courses altogether and a bill that exceeds $1,340.

Or here’s a more reasonable reference point: Even with my five extra pieces, I was the first person to cash out and leave Sushi Sho that night, with a bill just shy of $730. Even when you want to keep playing cards with the whales, sometimes it’s best to know your limit and fold.

Why should anyone care about another ultra-luxe sushi spot?

“A lot of tasting-menu restaurants assume, correctly, that almost nobody sitting at the counter is going to become a regular. These places are built for one-night flings, not long-term relationships,” Pete Wells kvetched in his farewell column last week. I don’t mind counter spots per se, but I too am tired of “utterly interchangeable” tasting menus, especially those that feel scientifically engineered to win a spot on the World’s 50 Best List.

But Sushi Sho stands apart. If anyone ever hires me to work as a billionaire industrialist (dream big, kids), I’d eat here twice a month, to keep working my way through the ever-changing okonomi menu.

I’d understand if you’re skeptical. The prices are obscene.

A decade ago, New York was home to just a single omakase spot where dinner for two would inevitably cross the $1,000 threshold. How quaint. Now, the city has at least ten such venues, as Manhattan becomes home to one of the deepest collections of high-end sushi bars outside of Tokyo. Part of the movement is a bland gold rush, an effort to vacuum up dollars from wealthy patrons with generic slices of bluefin toro.

A handful of these luxe spots, however, add something truly special to the city’s seafood scene. Sushi Sho is one of them.

Yes, there’s the alluring (and exorbitant) okonomi service. But there’s also the pacing. Courses come out in a way that feels genuinely surprising and out-of-order, like an initial viewing of “Pulp Fiction.” More on that in a bit.

There’s the ethos. Standard indulgences, like black caviar or excess toro, are largely absent. Instead, you get seasonal specialties with funkier flavors — like simmered hamaguri clams. And Sho’s rice program is almost worth the price of admission by itself; Nakazawa even ferments his grain into something that resembles a runny cheese.

Or let me get more personal: As someone who grew up eating a lot of strongly flavored seafood on Long Island — you can generally skip the Dover sole with me — Sho ranks as one of the most exciting sushi experiences I’ve ever had.

So scroll down for the full FAQ cheat sheet! Also: This is an extended review with a bunch of mini essays, service-y recommendations, and notes on how THC edibles made the amazing sushi even greater! No need to read the whole thing from start to finish; treat this column like a guide that you skim before landing on the sections that interest you!

Behind the Paywall: Sushi Sho and Wyld Edibles, Reviewed

• What to expect during the omakase half of the meal

• What extra okonomi pieces you should order (or avoid)

• How to get into Sho, and how much you’ll spend

• Why edibles are a perfect match for omakase spots

• Which Wyld edibles you should try, anywhere!

Read more

Subscribe now

Happy Heat Wave Week!

Ideally, you’re reading this from Montauk, Antibes, or someplace else where the gin and tonics are as strong as the ocean breeze.

I’m not in any of those places.

I’m sweating in out in Park Slope, where my daily alarm is the parade of construction trucks making their way to Gowanus for new luxury construction. A nice cold shellfish platter would be the correct antidote to all of this nonsense, but I can only write about chilled clams on the half shell so often.

So today, I’m going sing the praises of grilled whole fish — head, tail, everything.

That’s what I’ve been splurging on at Theodora in Fort Greene, a deeply sexy Mediterranean spot decked out with drippy candles, wicker chairs, tiny booths in curvy nooks, a fiery grill, fancy shot glasses, and other design elements appropriate for a romantic spy thriller on the Balearic.

It’s also one of the best places to eat whole fish in New York City.

Read more

Subscribe now

At a new seafood spot called Penny, while sitting next to a bro who dared to call lobster just “one step better than chicken” — some folks don’t really get it — I ended up eating a lot of good shellfish. As one would expect.

Mussels escabeche hummed with acidity. Charcoal squid popped with notes of smoke and chiles. And poached shrimp sported hues of red and white so vibrant I wondered whether they were auditioning to become candy canes. It all comes courtesy of ex-Momofuku chef Joshua Pinksy, who remains at the top of his game. As one would expect.

I’ll admit, however, that there was a separate pharmaceutical factor that made my meal extra delicious — a serious hit of Sundae School gummies.

The Korean American edibles let my brain zone in on all the subtle seafood flavors — and tune out the bro speak, like the other guy next to me who wasn’t sure whether he’d run a company again (“I just started a philanthropy.”).

It’s a hard knock life, right?

These gummies, to be sure, are actually mochi candies. They pack a bouncy and squishy texture — all while delivering a dreamy high. But perhaps the most fascinating thing is that Sundae School nows ships nationwide. You can even get them delivered to states like Texas, where chewing these sorts of products in a Bucc-ee’s parking lot can normally get you acquainted with the local sheriff’s department.

Rest assured, these are legal. Probably.

The Wild West era of hemp gummies

Once upon a time, if you wanted to enjoy the wonderfully potent mochi of Sundae School — a global smoke wear brand that entered the cannabis market in 2020 — you’d have to fly out to California. The chewy treats were as compelling a reason to visit Los Angeles as dinner at Kato or Pijja Palace.

The tiny gummies came in cute little tins. And they acted quickly, smoothing out the edges of a rough day in 20 minutes or so, not unlike a cold beer.

And most importantly, they tasted like something real and natural, with cool flavors like sour yuzu and boba milk tea. Co-founder Dae Lim — who was born in Seoul and raised in New York and Pennsylvania — wrote in an email to subscribers that he started the brand, in part, to “incorporate our culture” into edibles.

That’s not a minor point. The U.S. edibles market often feels like it has about as much culture as the corporate candy aisle at Duane Reade.

As good restaurants double down on personal stories and regional specialties, too many gummies can come across as oddly generic, as if they were focus grouped or created from an AI-algorithm. So there’s something nice about seeing brands like Sundae School bring a more distinct point of view to THC — especially as Modern Korean restaurants boom in New York and elsewhere.

Customers appreciate this mentality, it seems. Sundae School has sold over a million gummies from assorted dispensaries. But the margins have been thin, as Lim wrote in that same email:

Having been in California recreation market for 5 years, we have lost so much cash — not only do the dispensaries squeeze every cent for better margins & the taxes are sky high, but the dispos would also never pay on time and often DEFAULT on payment. Not to mention the slotting fees and the product trades and constant request for fleeces...”

So Sundae School took a page from the playbook of another critically acclaimed brand — Rose Los Angeles — and pivoted to national sales in April.

They did this by switching to hemp.

I’ve covered this before, so let me give you the quick version: Marijuana possession is still prohibited federally, but a provision in the 2018 farm bill has led quite a few young companies — along with Cheech and Chong — to believe they can now legally ship hemp-based edibles across state lines. The practical impact is that if you’re spending any time on Instagram, you’re probably seeing a billion wellness ads for why you should replace booze with THC and then go run a marathon while on hemp (no thank you, lol).

The crafty folks who manufacture these edibles — I always imagine it’s someone who looks like Joe Bang from “Logan Lucky” — do their best to ensure they contain about as much THC as the marijuana gummies you pick up at your fave dispensary. Specifically, these brands typically zero in on Delta-9 THC, the psychoactive chemical responsible for easing nausea, reducing anxiety, and making it feel like you’re piloting the Millenium Falcon while taking the R train to dinner at Foul Witch.

So…do Sundae School’s mail-order hemp edibles feel as strong as the stuff you used to get in California? They do not, and that’s partly due to the fact that the gummies clock in at a much lower dose. But they still work quite well. So enough with the context! Here’s everything you need to know about Sundae 2.0 gummies.

Behind the Paywall: Sundae School + Penny, Reviewed

• How the Sundae School hemp gummies taste!

• What type of “effects” one can expect from the mochi gummies

• Analysis: Are they worth the cost?

• Review: What to order at Penny in the East Village

How do they taste?

They’re delicious, and that’s why Sundae School gummies still rank as some of my favorite, even if the potency has dipped.

Read more

Subscribe now

Let’s all eat more caviar

“Cocaine is God's way of telling you you're making too much money,” Robin Williams famously proclaimed. One could make the same argument about caviar, the salt-cured eggs of a regal sturgeon. Once you develop a taste for the stuff, it will drain your wallet quickly.

Restaurants are happy to oblige in this regard. Sometimes that means an excellent caviar course. But more often these days, it means “bumps” and supplements to jack up your bill — and to attract TikTok views. It’s a reality that could make something as “rarefied” as caviar seem “ordinary,” NY Mag’s Tammie Teclemariam wrote last week. She’s right. And that’s too bad, because good caviar is truly special.

An oyster tastes like an oyster and a scallop tastes like a scallop, but roe is an edible abstraction, the force and flavor of the sea transformed into a tiny pearl.

I love baerii caviar, as black as an ink well. I love ossetra, as gold as a Laker’s jersey. I love tobiko, flying fish roe that crunches like a shard of ice on a cold vodka martini.

When an old lady curses her sister in “Moonstruck,” wishing that the “green water of the Atlantic should swallow her up,” I improbably start thinking of shassetra, voluptuous roe with a turquoise hue. And I feel my mouth filling up with seawater.

But most of all, caviar reminds me of my time as a student in Moscow, when I’d queue up for 30 minutes in front of an epic street vendor. I went there for “krasnaya ikra” — literally: red caviar — wrapped up in papery blini. The warmth of the pancake was like a jolt of electricity to the pearls, turning them into little grenades of brine and oil. I’d gobble up my snack outside at sunset, while snowflakes fell from the grey sky.

I wish we were all eating more red caviar — at least outside of sushi spots, where it’s quite common (and delicious). This undervalued stuff is more affordable than sturgeon roe, and it’s a luxury in its own right.

Good salmon roe trembles like barely set panna cotta; it packs powerful notes of the ocean. Trout roe is milder yet firmer; it pops with the force of bubble wrap. But in both cases, the flavors are louder than with black caviar, where you sometimes need to close your eyes and meditate to realize it’s even there.

This brings us to Simon Kim’s Coqodaq, a rare high-end spot to offer trout roe as an alternative to traditional caviar. A small dollop of the stuff garnishes a chicken nugget. Cost: $16. But whether it’s actually a compelling splurge is another matter, because the price is literally for a single nugget.

Those who opt for the black variety will spend $28 per nugget. Like I said, caviar can drain your wallet.

The case for caviar at home

At too many restaurants, caviar isn’t really a luxury; it’s expensive salt. It’s photogenic salt. It’s a small dab of roe on nigiri sushi. It’s an afterthought of a garnish for beef tartare.

You won’t get anyone to fall in love with caviar by serving them just a bite or two. And while full-fledged caviar service — with blini and 30 grams of roe — allows for more guaranteed fun — that option will easily set you back well over $200.

This is all why I generally prefer to eat caviar the same way I like to eat tinned fish — at home.

Now, the good news is that you can still find whimsical, creative caviar dishes at New York restaurants; I write about a few of them further below. But here’s the thing: Most restaurants don’t really “add value” to the caviar they serve.

They simply serve it.

Caviar isn’t like cooking a $180 steak to a precise temperature, laboring for hours to make mole negro, learning to slice Iberico, or sourcing a rare allocation wine. The caviar you try in a restaurant is the same stuff you get at your local purveyor, at a place like Petrossian, Paramount, or Russ & Daughters.

And while my own apartment doesn’t have the same buzz as a swank hotspot, one of the best parts of eating caviar at home is not paying a markup for the privilege of having someone else throw a thimble’s worth of roe onto a tater tot.

With caviar at home, you pay less and you get more, with no degradation in quality. You simply grab a spoon and start eating. No instructions necessary. And remember: when you buy caviar at a good retailer, you’re not paying 20 percent tip, or even sales tax, because caviar is tax-free outside of restaurants.

But enough Suttonomics for now. Let’s talk about the tasty stuff. This is the first of what will hopefully be many LO Times caviar guides. Scroll down for an original-ish recipe, a few caviar suggestions, thoughts on THC with fish roe, and some tasty restaurant caviar dishes. Enjoy!

Behind the paywall: Your Definitive Caviar Guide, Part I

• Original recipe: How to make an amazing trout roe sandwich

• Two Petrossian caviars you should try (but probably haven’t)

• A few notes on the $55 caviar hand roll at Sixty Three Clinton

• Lost Farm’s excellent THC edibles: NYC flavors reviewed

• A few notes on the Modern Mexican tasting menu at Corima

• How much fish roe you’ll need for a caviar night at home

Read more

Subscribe now

A meal at Cosme, one of my favorite splurge spots, while on an edible

One of my favorite fancy dinners last year began on a sidewalk in Midtown, a full 20 minutes before I reached the restaurant. I usually don’t consider pregaming with edibles part of an actual meal. But this was different.

While strolling over to Cosme in Flatiron, I stopped at a street corner, and opened a tiny box by Rose Los Angeles. Perhaps you’ve heard of the brand. It’s a hip cannabis-company known for its pricey edibles ($36 or more), low doses of THC, chic collaborations (Dominique Crenn, Enrique Olvera), and annoyingly ubiquitous influencer ads (“So the chef at the No. 1 restaurant in the world just released their own line of edibles”).

Twenty orange gummies, speckled red and packed as tightly as AirPods, lied inside a palm-sized box. David Zilber, who once led up the fermentation program at Noma, helped create this particular batch. Among the listed ingredients were sous vide Nashi and Bosc pears, clarified kimchi water, and a dusting of — let me see here — “heirloom” gochugaru powder. Christ.

Then I ate one of the gummies. The firm gelatins reminded me of movie theater Dots, but nothing else screamed “candy.” Chewing it released an aroma so floral and concentrated it was closer to a ripe apricot than a typical pear. And the chiles emitted a startling heat, a warm rush for a fall evening. All told, what looked like an everyday sweet tasted more like a creative amuse at a posh fine dining spot.

Forty-five minutes later, I could feel the edible doing the impossible: making this Modern Mexican meal even more delicious than it already was.

The gummy’s 5 mg of THC — the psychoactive component in marijuana — let my mind zero in on the deep smoke of pasilla-laced octopus. It let me focus on the nuances of a sweet potato tamal, swathed in carrot-colored foam. That’s not a minor point. You know how at a fancy restaurant, sometimes you need to close your eyes to detect a subtle seasoning? I find that when enjoying a good edible, the ingredients reveal themselves with much greater clarity.

So with the tamal, the sweet potato sugars jumped out. For a moment, it seemed as if I was eating cake, all moist and crumbly. Then came the pastoral earthiness of the masa and a smoldering guajillo heat. Yes, that’s how this particular tamal is supposed to taste. But for me, sampling a layered dish on THC is like watching Jordan Peele’s “Nope” on a giant IMAX screen, versus on a laptop. The flavors become more immersive. You don’t have to ask a waiter if there’s cilantro, because the cilantro is right there, whispering into your ear.

And while I know for a fact that other great and natural-tasting edibles — that cost much less — will produce a similar effect, sometimes it’s nice to kick off a fancy evening with “Champagne.”

Do we really need seasonal edibles? Maybe!

The next time I dine at Cosme, alas, I’ll have to pregame with another Rose flavor. The Zilber variety, which I picked up at Gotham in the East Village, is sold out. But the permanent collection of flavors — rose, mango, and “boxed wine” — remains pretty great. And one of the things that sets Rose apart from other pricey brands is its constantly changing roster of chef collaborations. So when the prevailing special sells out, and it always does, another one comes online soon enough.

Yes, there’s a bit of clever marketing in any limited-edition release. And sometimes, Rose’s copywriting can induce a bit of farm-to-table eyeball-rolling (the edibles “capture a snapshot of nature, bringing together organically grown flower and local fruit at the peak of its season.”). But still, I like how this small but chic cannabis company — not a class of business known for cutting-edge flavors, not any more than Jolly Rancher — is putting out experimental gummies on a regular basis. Just as I’ll pop into a restaurant when I see on Instagram that there’s a fun nightly special on the menu, I enjoy checking out when Rose has something that might run out in a few days.

On that note, the latest variety is plum miso caramel, developed in conjunction with Madrid’s Acid Bakehouse. It’s available across the country via mail order for $45.

Mail-order edibles? Is that possible? Are they available in stores too?

Rose is one of the few purveyors that ships nationwide. That’s an impressive feat, since sending marijuana through the postal service is theoretically the type of thing that could impede your ability to vote in presidential elections (or access the Internet) for quite some time.

So Rose does something different. For its in-store products in California and New York, the company uses “flower rosin” produced from marijuana. But for its mail-order products, the company relies on rosin derived from hemp cannabis, which a number of companies believe is legal thanks to a change in the Farm Bill.

Soon, those distinctions could be moot. Rose co-founder Nathan Cozzolino tells The LO Times that the San Francisco-based company is no longer producing wholesale to sell into retail locations. “There just isn’t the margin to support continuing to use the quality of ingredients that we choose to use,” he writes via email.

You can still find the (stronger) in-store versions at Gotham in New York and at select California locations.

Behind the paywall:

• Rose reviews: Ha’s Dac Biet (sold out), Boxed Wine, Rose Hibiscus, Mango

• A stunner of a steak sandwich at Tusk Bar

• Thai Diner’s meaty larb salad, reviewed

• Why Rose’s dosing scheme makes for a more enjoyable edible

• The importance of edibles going beyond the “World’s 50 Best” network

Will Rose’s hemp-based edibles still get you “high” or stoned?

They should, but allow me to explain…

Read more

Subscribe now

Hey, are you interested in a meal that costs less than $40?

Well, here you go. One of the world’s most affordable steak chains reopened in a new location in Manhattan this month, following a two-year pandemic hiatus.

The timing, in theory, couldn’t be better.

As New Yorkers grapple with sky-high beef prices, Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote — with locations in Mexico City, London, and Paris — is back with $34.95 steak dinners. For that price, patrons get a mustard-y salad, loads of golden fries, and sliced sirloin slathered in a pleasantly livery green sauce. A TikToker raved about it earlier this month (“best steak frites in the world?”), racking up 1.8 million views, while another social media proponent received over 2.4 million views.

Folks like this place. A lot. That brings up another reality: L’Entrecote doesn’t accept reservations in New York. And it doesn’t take phone numbers at the door, a policy that would let folks hang out elsewhere until their table is ready. At L’Entrecote, you simply stand and wait. And wait you will. A Financial Times reporter queued up for an hour to get into the London location this summer. And last week, I waited two hours and twenty minutes before sitting down at the New York outpost.

Should you line up for dinner too? You should not. Though to be clear you shouldn’t eat at this Groupon of a restaurant even if there’s no wait. I had quite a bit of time to kill during my visit, so please enjoy this minute-by-minute account of a…very long evening and a very bad meal.

The two hour and twenty minute wait, aided by edibles.

7:26. I text my college roommate that I’m heading to L’Entrecote. He loves the Paris original, and he texts me back that he saw MaCaulay Culkin there years ago. Cool!

7:41. I arrive at L’Entrecote. My plan initial plan was to grab a light steak meal here and then hit Roscioli downtown, but when I show up in Midtown I realize I won’t be enjoying any lush Roman carbonaras tonight. The line stretches so far down 54th street that there appears to be more people outside the restaurant than inside.

8:00. A couple in front of me decides to give up after chatting with the host. “Over an hour wait,” one of them says. That’s not a problem for me, I can just write on my iPhone.

8:15. A few other folks drop out. They say the wait is now over two hours. My evening is suddenly less fun. Multiple people are walking up and down the block filming the line with their iPhones, which means I’ll probably be on a viral TikTok tomorrow.

8:30. A bunch of guys in front of me are smoking a joint. Now this is the type of influencing I need. I could use a little THC fun to help soften the wait.

8:58. A few more people quit the line. More steak for me. I’m about halfway to the door, but equally importantly, the entire line is almost as long as it was an hour ago. The Line Law of Schadenfreude dictates that you want the queue behind you to keep growing, so you know there are lots of folks who are suffering as much as you. Sorry!

9:00. I take half a 5mg edible, a rose-flavored Turkish delight that I’ll write more about soon. The goal is to make the wait a bit more groovy, and to sharpen my palate for the steak dinner that’s soon to come.

Spoiler: The steak would not be soon to come.

9:01. I start watching a neat video on someone else’s iPhone…until she catches me peering over her shoulder and steps out of my view. Bummer.

9:05. I can smell the musky aroma of meat grilling from outside. So can other folks. This is promising.

9:16: A guy in front of me in a blue hoodie is drinking a Cutwater canned rum cocktail out of a black plastic bag. Smart idea. Of course, if this were a restaurant more interested in hospitality, the host would take your number and give you an estimated wait time — and you’d be able to hang out at a bar while you wait. Here, you simply wait outside. Bogus.

9:18. The edible is definitely hitting. Excellent!

9:44. As I peek through the window, I see a waiter spooning green sauce — reportedly laced with chicken livers — over steaks. I’m transfixed. I also see there’s no bar, which means that solo diners like me won’t get to chat it up with strangers or bartenders at a counter. I’ll be stuck at a table.

~9:50. I’m finally inside a warm foyer. And I start to think about opportunity cost (I swear I’m fun on edibles), a basic economic concept that would ask you to assess what you’re giving up in exchange for a $34 steak dinner.

What you’re giving up is over two hours of your valuable time — 140 minutes that could’ve been spent in a museum, waiting on another line (lol) for last minute Broadway tickets, finishing up a project at work — in exchange for saving some money on steak. So that steak better be one of the city’s best, right?

The steak dinner begins. It is a bad steak dinner.

9:57. I sit down for dinner. Christ.

10:00. A waiter takes my order for Champagne and steak. She — all the servers are women dressed as French maids — writes “R” for rare on my tablecloth. The tablecloth looks and feels….plastic-y, like Amazon packaging material.

10:07. My salad arrives, a pile of lettuce coated in mustard vinaigrette and topped with walnuts. Food, finally! But my Champagne is missing. A waiter explains it’s because they’re “reorganizing” the bar, which sounds like something wealthy cocktail enthusiasts in Aspen do before entertaining on a slow weekend.

10:08. I eat the salad, or perhaps the better verb is slurp. The salad plate is so warm that many of the greens have wilted into something that tastes like wet, soggy tissue paper.

10:09. A side of bread accompanies the salad. It is not good bread. It’s the type of dense, feed-the-pigeons baguette that would make you wonder whether this global ambassador for French gastronomy has given up on its craft and started outsourcing its bread from a Knights of Columbus catering hall on Long Island. It comes with no butter or olive oil.

10:14: The lukewarm Champagne finally arrives. It is dominated by notes of oak. It is as wonderful an ode to French winemaking as the baguette is to Gallic boulangerie. It costs $18.

10:22. I keep drinking the sparkling wine, not because it’s good but because at this point I’m done with the bread and I just need to keep my blood sugar up.

10:29. The pre-sliced sirloin arrives. It packs no caramelized char, like French pan-roasted steaks are famous for. It has no smoke or complex notes from, say, good charcoal or gas grilling. It’s mostly grey on the outside and cool and rare on the inside. It doesn’t taste beefy. It tastes….savory, tender, and indistinct, like lean chicken breast without the skin. There is little discernible marbling. The only flavor comes from the faintly livery green sauce.

The fries are good.

10:32. I take a sip of my pinot noir. I’d describe the flavor as lightly sweetened Kool-Aid laced with notes of tomato, butter, and grain alcohol.

~10:36. I post some photos of a few really good meals on Instagram so that my friends and exes will think I’m leading an enviable lifestyle and not trapped in a brightly lit Midtown cafeteria on a Friday night.

10:38. My waiter brings over “seconds,” a follow-up serving of sliced steak. It is about as bland as the first batch, but this pile of meat is….overcooked. It’s sad, because the magic of taking an edible before dinner is that it lets you detect minor nuances in a dish with greater ease. I find that THC makes so many foods taste even more delicious! But here, there was no magic, no nuances, no more deliciousness. It was like…when Melissandre asked John Snow what he saw when he got a temporary sneak peek of the afterlife, to which he replied: “Nothing, there was nothing at all.”

10:45. I start to wonder how a restaurant that emits such a wonderfully beefy scent onto our city streets can sell food that’s so polite and bland behind its doors. Like, does L’Entrecote buy packaged steak perfume from the same industrial food science plant that surely produces Subway’s fresh bread scent?

10:46. A young couple from the U.K. sits down next to me. They inform the waiter that they’ve been here before, just like some of my good friends. And that’s the part that really crushes me. The New York location might’ve just reopened, but this is a global chain that’s been around for quite some time. The folks who truly love this place — and the scores of first-timers drawn in by social media — deserve better.

They deserve better than warm salad, dry bread, crap wine, steak that tastes like it was ripped from a plastic box that says “Lunchables,” and 2.5 hour waits. My meal feels less like hospitality, and more like effort to shake everyone down.

10:48. I drag my bread through the green sauce. This action is for naught, because the bread is literally too dry and hard to chew. I makes a percussive sound as I toss it down on my plate.

10:51. My server drops the laminated dessert card. There are no prices, names, or descriptions, just photoshopped images of three vaguely chocolate-y things, and two vaguely creamy things. It honestly looks like a cognitive test to determine if, like, a trained crow can point its beak at a particular color in exchange for a treat.

11:01. The guy and the girl next to me, upon receiving their steaks, stop talking and individually ‘gram their red meat in silence. This is how we say grace in 2023.

11:02. I get the check and GTFO. I spend just over $80 after tax and tip for a meal that was as fun as an afternoon at the DMV.

11:06. A server blows out a few candles as I leave the restaurant. Le Relais de Venise is closed.

The escape and the post-mortem.

11:15. As I head back to Hell’s Kitchen, I think how about great it is that I got so much writing done during dinner. A little discipline and THC can do wonders for efficiency, right?

11:38. I drop by my local Cuban bar to flesh out all my notes — and to unwind with some live music. I also take out my phone’s calculator to do a little math. And I realize the following: If I went to Pastis or Lord’s instead, I probably would’ve spent an extra $50 or more on a similar meal: a salad, two drinks, and a steak au poivre. Yes, that’s a lot more money! But I would’ve finished dinner over two hours earlier.

For me, an extra $50 is worth it for shorter wait times (or guaranteed reservations). The money is worth it for being able to order off a larger menu, so both my companion and I can order something other than steak (or heck, we could just share an au poivre and save some bucks). And the higher price is worth it for one of the city’s best steak frites, instead of one that is…profoundly less enjoyable.

Around Midnight: I’m plagued, for a brief moment, by the question of whether I should go back for a second or third visit, to see how things might improve. Then I ask myself: Do you think Relais de Venise will change its bread program? Do you think they’re going to magically start purchasing beef with actual flavor and marbling? Do you think they’ll start using good stemware, and introduce a better wine list, and pour beers that are better than Heineken or Corona? Do you? Do you really, really think it’s important to wait outside, on a November evening, for a few hours, yet again? Are you absolutely out of your mind?

Alright, that’s enough for today! Happy Chompsgiving!

Ryan

p.s. I’ve heard of much shorter wait times during lunch or on certain weeknights at L’Entrecote. Should you go then? I’d still say no. Skirt Steak ($45) in Flatiron is a better bet for more flavorful beef, as is Empanada Mama (for the $29.50 bandeja paisa) or Guantanamera (for the $29 vaca frita).

p.p.s. Here’s the NYT take on Le Relais from 2009.

If there is a plain bag of gummy bears nearby, I will eat them. All of them, regardless of the repercussions. The last time I stayed in a Boston hotel I racked up an uncomfortable room service charge because the minibar gummies came in a glass souvenir jar. I went through two jars. And if you ever ask me about my last visit to Great Britain, a country with a rich and diverse culinary scene, I will quickly navigate our conversation to The Fat Duck, a tasting menu spot where the famed whisky gummies were so precisely flavored I almost cried.

But one of my favorite chewy treats these days is a very particular green apple gummy. It tastes like a Jolly Rancher forged from freshly pressed apple juice — and then melted it into something as soft as a marshmallow. It’s also laced with enough zippy acidity to recall a good German Riesling.

Wyld, an Oregon-based purveyor, is the force behind this fine product, which has one little extra bonus feature as well.

Subscribe now

Each gummy contains 10 milligrams of a substance called tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the primary psychoactive component in marijuana. This is why I don’t eat the whole container. I only take half an edible, at most. Then, about an hour or so later, I feel the harsh world softening around me. And I get really hungry in a way that makes me quite happy.

The Lo Hi: Your guide to enjoying edibles while dining out (or in)

People take edibles for their various physiological and psychological effects: euphoria, relaxation, heightened sensory perception, laughter, and increased appetite. That’s a big reason why I love them, and why I’ll pay up to $40 per package; that’s a few dollars more than a bag of Haribo Twin Snakes. But as a lifelong fan of gummies — and all sorts of candy — I also really dig how the best edibles taste, and how they seem to make the things I love to eat taste even better.

So today, I’m launching The Lo Hi, a new LO Times column that lies at the crossroads of good food — especially restaurant food — and good edibles.

It’s a coverage decision that coincides with more states adopting recreational legalization (the number is up to 23 now) and with potential changes to federal drug scheduling laws in the works as well. The column also arrives as New York City experiences a boom in new cannabis shops (many of them unlicensed), some of which also sell pretty tasty snacks as well.

Let me add: I’ve found many of those stores to be happy places, bringing a sense of of liveliness to otherwise vacant spaces, especially when they’re open late at night.

Share

What will coverage look like? I’ll review some of the best edibles out there (along with suggestions on what to avoid), and sometimes I’ll highlight collaborations between cannabis companies and chefs you know (or don’t know).

And I’ll regularly offer some thoughts on dining out (or in) after taking a nice edible. This is something I know a thing or two about! A few days a week, I’ll treat myself to a single gummy, maybe one that tastes potently of rose, chiles, or yuzu. And hours later, I’ll find myself intensely meditating on the tannins and perfumes in a pint of Van Leeuwen Earl Grey (completely normal behavior, lol). Or I’ll try to guess when the cool menthol sting of mint chip ice cream will ever leave my esophagus.

I’m not a cannabis expert, nor do I aim to compete with more comprehensive sites. Yet still, I’d like to carve out a tiny bit of space for thinking out loud about the deliciousness of edibles — and their dreamy effects — from the point of view of a journalist who writes about food for a living.

Yes, I’ll be reviewing products and making lists here, but I don’t believe it will be a product review column like you’ll find on Wirecutter. I want The Lo Hi to be as delightful and fun and informed as any other piece of food writing. My first proper edibles column should drop sometime next week or not too long thereafter.

In the meantime here’s a quick little Q&A!

So this is not just about reviewing edibles, you’ll also have notes on great restaurant food?

Yep! I like to think gummy reviews will be a big part of The Lo Hi. But edibles can be as lovely a match for good food, I’ll argue, as a nice glass of wine, even though it has very different effects on the body and mind than a flute of fizzy pét-nat.

I’ll sometimes write about taking gummies before dining at restaurants across the culinary spectrum, be they affordable or fancy, dine in or takeout. And hopefully this won’t turn out to be some awkward “how things are different” experiment, but rather a level-headed column on some really good food that you’ll want to eat regardless — with maybe a few quick additional notes on the THC when appropriate. The plan is to keep these writeups separate from regular reviews.

Takeout seems like a nice fit here, right?

Yes, like with regular reviews in this late pandemic era, I try to highlight restaurant food consumed away from restaurants from time to time. But more broadly: I tend to enjoy edibles most of all at home, with friends or family, and so that’s why I think I’ll often be focusing on good takeout fare in this column.

What if this is just not my thing?

Understood! I created The Lo Hi as a “separate section,” so you should be able to unsubscribe to this particular column if it’s not your thing…and you’ll still get all the other great LO Times journalism you love. That said, if you’re undecided, we hope you give reading The Lo Hi a shot, and I reckon you’ll enjoy it for some of the dining out (or in) recommendations alone. And just to be sure; we don’t believe this column will reduce the frequency of our regular restaurant reviews or Free Food columns.

How much nationwide coverage will there be?

As much as possible! You’ll eventually see me trying some of my favorite edibles in California and Colorado, alongside some solid food in those respective states. That should make for some fun columns and also more practically it’s not legal to bring cannabis across state lines even if that product is permitted in both the origin and destination states (which is patently ridiculous). I’ll also do my best to write about more nationally available products like hemp-based Delta-8 THC.

What are your thoughts on dosage, especially for beginners?

That’s beyond the scope of what I’m capable of advising. But RISE Dispensary has some smart talk on how edibles might effect you differently than other forms of cannabis, and how long they might take to kick in. And Wyld’s website suggests that beginners start with doses as low as 1 mg of THC.

Some perspective: Many commercial gummies contain about 10 mg each, with serving sized listed as “half” a gummy (lol, you ever see a serving size of hot dogs as half a sausage?). As a casual user (a few times a week at most), I find that a 2.5 mg THC dose is usually right for me for appetite or chilling out purposes, though sometimes I’ll level up to 5mg when I have less to do the next day.

What types of edibles will you be writing about?

Just about any mint, chocolate, gummy, spray, or candy that feels compelling to write about! I’ll cover as many different varieties of cannabis and as many edible flavors as is reasonable — with a skeptical eye toward purported benefits, marketing language, and the dubious sativa versus indica divide.

And you’re paying for all these edibles?

Correct. We don’t plan on accepting free products. This is why so many of our columns sit behind a paywall. It takes resources to produce this type of journalism.

How often will the Lo Hi hit my inbox?

We hope to have a column about twice a month or so at first. We’ll see!

What can you tell us about those Wyld gummies you mentioned?

The Oregon-based company claims to produce the country’s best-selling gummies. What I particularly like about Wyld (I love other brands too) is that the fruit flavors are particularly vivid, just like with a good pate de fruit at a chic restaurant. Their gummies are not yet available in New York, but the company has announced plans to launch in the Empire State and New Jersey soon.

Is there any other cannabis reading that you recommend?

The High Times has been at it since 1974, but here on Substack, I’ve enjoyed skimming through the following sites:

• Cannabitch: cannabis culture by Jackie Bryant, managing editor of San Diego Magazine.

• Regulated State: by Jonathan Rose, a former Denver Business Journal reporter who now covers Colorado’s cannabis industry and “burgeoning” psychedelics sector.

• Cannabis Confidential: by Todd Harrison, who offers thoughts on the national cannabis landscape.

Can you give us any insight into the name of this column?

I thought about calling it Sutton Stash (!!!) but I prefer not to name things after myself — especially if I have any hopes of growing this site one day. So I settled on The Lo Hi. I just thought it sounded right. It’s a hat tip to both The LO Times and the LoHi neighborhood in Denver — a city that I like to call a home away from home.

A final note…one of the fun things about reviewing restaurants is that you’re not just critiquing. You’re also trying to give folks a common vocabulary for what they’re experiencing while chewing on a piece of braised tofu or a pickled ramp. You’re trying to help people translate the culinary symphonies swirling around in their heads into actual sheet music, so other folks can access that knowledge as well, and build upon that lexicon.

So let’s see if we can contribute to the lexicon with edibles! See you soon with our first column.

Cheers,

Ryan!!!

p.s. If there’s a particular brand of edibles you really dig, anywhere in the country, let me know in the comments or shoot me off an email!