Meals That Are Best To Finish With A Cold Can Of Soda, Ranked

Earlier today, Tom Ley dropped the following tweet into our Slack:

This dumpling-drink combo naturally led to a discussion about which meals pair best with an ice-cold soda, and how the more sodium the meal has, the better the sugary drink will taste. It helped that this conversation happened in the middle of summer and right around lunchtime. I am not the most adventurous Defector staffer when it comes to food—Samer ranked sushi highly on his personal list, but I've had sushi maybe four times in my life and never with soda—but I am an incorrigible consumer of full-strength sodas, so I volunteered to write a list of some of my recent meals, ranked by how much they were improved with a post-meal can.

1. Fried chicken
2. Chicken parm sandwich
3. Bacon cheeseburger
4. Pepperoni flatbread pizza
5. Korean BBQ wings
6. Popcorn
7. Squid-ink paella
8. Al pastor tacos
9. Crab legs with garlic butter
10. Szechuan dry pot pork
11. French fries
12. Pan-seared pork dumplings
13. Steak teriyaki
14. Lasagna
15. Arepa de pabellon
16. BBQ spare ribs
17. Seafood gumbo
18. Everything bagel with cream cheese (while hungover)
19. Everything bagel with cream cheese (while not hungover)
20. Kale salad
21. Getting hit with horrible indigestion
22. Chocolate chip pancakes