Four Bites Sunday News: Delicious last-minute shopping suggestions that support local artisans
By Andrew Galarneau
(Image above: Agle’s Farm Stand Christmas offerings)
Caroling gets the glamor, but the most popular Christmas tradition is last-minute gift shopping.
Choosing homegrown Buffalo gifts supports your community, and twangs the heartstrings like nothing Amazon has in stock.
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A gift card from your favorite restaurant is always in order. Here’s some more specific ideas.
FARM SHOP BOUNTY: The little store has huge gifting potential. You’ll be hailed as a hero if you show up to dinner with Savage Wheat Project take-and-bake cinnamon rolls and eggnog.
Or Quokka Sweets’ super-premium ice cream in holiday flavors like Peppermint Hot Cocoa, Panettone, or Sticky Toffee Pudding.
Or go directly to the source with Black Sheep’s sticky toffee pudding kit. Plus a hundred other artisanal food gifts, like jams, jellies, honey, and sauces.
Please note that its only pre-Christmas hours are Tuesday Dec. 23, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Then noon-5 p.m. Dec. 26, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 27, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Dec. 28.
235 B Lexington Ave., entrance on Ashland facing The Place.
KAE’S DUMPLING SCHOOL: Learn how to make flower-shaped chor muang dumplings from Tiny Thai owner Wanthureerat “Kae” Baramee – then eat them. She also offers a seminar focused on how to make a proper pad Thai. Classes are $75 per person or $120 for two people.
37 Chandler St., tinythai.biz, 716-335-0474
CHEESE PLEASER: Give a fellow cheese fan a three-month run in Amabel Provisions’ Cheese Club ($60), a quarter-pound each of four cheeses. You can take turns picking up the monthly selections at 1008 Elmwood Ave., and hosting a cheese party. Each batch comes with informational notes, and you can even opt out of stinky cheeses.
Amabel, Buffalo’s only proper cheese shop, also offers a wide array of cheeses, charcuterie, candy, and other goods for gifting or classing-up your holiday table.
1006 Elmwood Ave., amabelprovisions.com, 716-277-6823
AGLE’S FARM MARKET: In Eden, Agle’s has been a source for locally grown goodness – including trees and wreaths – since 1953. Then there’s Goat milk fudge, and premium local Burley’s Berries Creamery butter, weighing in at 85 percent butterfat, richer than Plugra.
7952 Gowanda State Road, Eden, aglesmarket.com, 716-992-4290
FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE: Dark Forest Chocolate Makers is Buffalo’s only artisanal bean-to-bar chocolate shop. Using beans certified free of slave labor, the Lancaster shop offers bars of subtly distinct chocolate, including vegan options.
It also offers French hot chocolate in milk, for simmering with milk until thickened, and topped with housemade marshmallows with local honey and house-made vanilla extract.
Christmas week hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday.
11 W. Main St., Lancaster, darkforestchocolate.com, 716-288-9167
BELLY BOY BONBONS: Belly Boy’s buzzy hit Dubai chocolate labubus, orange dark chocolate tree with pumpkin seed praline, and its diverse collection of bonbons are available at Richardson Winter Holiday Market today noon-4 p.m., and at its 875 Elmwood Ave. site 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday.
WHERE TO EAT IN BUFFALO 2026: You can order my first book, Where to Eat in Buffalo 2026, at fourbites.net/shop or get it at Talking Leaves Bookstore, Miller’s Thumb Bakery, Read It & Eat Culinary Bookshop, Mojo Market, and the Buffalo History Museum.
It’s $13.99, a pocket-sized paperback with color photos that focuses on 175 restaurants, bakeries, and food shops that can make your eating life better. Here’s a map of included locations so you can check out the diversity.
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Four Bites Sunday News will always be free. Your patronage ($8 a month, $50 a year) gets you my restaurant reviews and recipes too, while supporting my work.
Would you like me to cook for you? Here’s two options.
On Jan. 15, I’ll be cooking dinner and telling stories at This Little Pig in Clarence. Tickets are $135. I have five left, and you can get them here. Here’s the menu:
Or I can throw a party at your house. For $500, I’ll develop the menu with you, do the shopping, cook, chat, and clean up. You also get a year’s full-access Four Bites subscription. Email me at andrew@fourbites.net to arrange.
REVIEW: With restaurant visits getting rarer and rarer, Golden Hill is worth holding up in support of the proposition that the way a restaurant makes you feel can be as important as the food. When I asked my mother where she wanted to celebrate her 85th birthday, she chose a little Chinese restaurant on Sheridan Drive where she can relax and eat some of her favorites. (Thursday, for patrons.)
ASK THE CRITIC
Q: What restaurants are open Christmas Day?
– Michael K., via text
A: Here’s where I’d go for someone else’s cooking Christmas Day: Golden Hill, Peking Quick One, Nellai Banana Leaf, Home Taste, or New Jewel of India.
More reading from Michael Chelus of Nittany Epicurean:
- Andrew wrote about the Colombian fare he found at Dulce Hogar Bakery [Four Bites]
- You can now get New York-style bagels in Clarence at BagelGrounds [Four Bites]
- Ice wine season is here in WNY with local wineries like Arrowhead Spring Vineyards, 21 Brix and more leading the charge [Buffalo News]
- Francesca tried to come up with our 25 best restaurnts and ended up with 40. She told us about five of them including Moriarty Meats & Café Bar and Southern Junction [Buffalo News]
- Francesca gave us more details on the ownership transition for Windy Brew [Buffalo News]
- Mr. Galarneau told us why Falafel Bar is a truly great local restaurant [Four Bites]
- Brian’s Buffalo Beer Buzz told us about an inflation buster promotion from Big Ditch, the seventh annual Brewer’s Invitational to take place at the NYBP Beer Lodge on 2/28 and more [Buffalo Beer League]
#30#
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