I always take pictures of my food, whether it is from a restaurant or home made, and post it on Facebook. I get a lot of flack from from female friends who's boyfriends comment on my home-made food pics ("Dontcha wish your girlfriend could cook like me? Dontcha?"). My phone is constantly reminding me that there is a memory shortage and my photo can't be saved. When that happens I'll usually delete pictures of my fiancé and I, or of my mother's dog, or of someone's kid doing something cute...never the precious food pictures.
Anyone who has ever eaten with me knows I do this (much to their embarrassment..."Omg, at least turn off the flash!"), which often leads to people asking "Where would you recommend we go for ________?" The answer is always, "I don't know...ask Stephen [my fiancé]." "But you've been to so many restaurants"...yeah I have, but I can't remember anything about them. Before the "Check In" feature became a thing, I rarely could remember where I took the pictures I posted. I would usually tell people to just sift through my Facebook albums, point to some dish that they thought looked good, and I'd attempt to remember where it was so that they could go....usually resulted in me asking Stephen anyway.
The solution: actually document what I ate and where, would I go back, who would I recommend it to and for what occasions, how the service was, what did it compare to, etc.
Now the plot thickens. Stephen and I moved from Montreal, QC to Vancouver, BC 4 days ago. We had never been to Vancouver before, and we don't know a single person here, but we heard the city has great food. Since we transferred to BC with our company, they put us up in a furnished apartment for the first month.
Our flight landed at 1AM, so obviously when we woke up the next morning there was nothing in the fridge for breakfast. Cue Googling "Vancouver amazing breakfast place." Yelp results came up...their site hurts my face. Urban Spoon...I don't like the vote system, it's too simple and finite. TripAdvisor...star system with reviews that are usually pretty detailed, works for me. We chose to go to Cafe Medina, since it was the highest rated restaurant that mentioned great breakfast.
It was Tuesday and 11AM (a business day), and there was a 60 minute wait outside Cafe Medina. No problem. The weather is fine and the wait must mean it's really good. While we were waiting, I looked through the top 50 restaurants in Vancouver on TripAdvisor, some of which I recognized from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives or You Gotta Eat Here. We had time to kill, so I checked out the top 50 restaurants in Montreal to see how many I had actually been to back home.
I consider myself to have eaten some of the best food in Montreal....apparently not say the rankings on TripAdvisor. I had only eaten at 7 of the top 50, which included St-Viateur Bagel and Première Moisson. What the hell Montreal? Première Moisson? Really? For those who don't know what that is, it is a chain of bakeries in Montreal. They sell bread. And other stuff. It's good, but it's not a restaurant. I didn't recognize the other 43 in the list, and my favourite restaurant Les Trois Petits Bouchons is listed at #195. It is waaaaaaaaay better than Europea (#3) and it's number #195???
I read the reviews for Les Trois Petits Bouchons and realized that the reason its #195 is because the people reviewing it are idiots. I just went Dr. House on you...you're total IDIOTS!
"The portions are small"...It's up-scale dining, that's to be expected.
"Poor value for your dollar"...I had a ridiculous 7-course tasting menu there for $50 per head, which is unheard of... so go to McDonald's next time and order off the dollar menu.
"The wine was too expensive"...They carry mostly organic or privately imported wines, so yes, they are going to be more expensive.
My point is the top 50 in Montreal were wrong. Look at my Facebook albums; this is a very educated assessment. Foodies, whether local or tourists, are being misguided because idiots who know nothing about epic food are allowed to judge what is good or bad. If I were a tourist, I'd be pissed if I went to Premiére Moisson for lunch, because it sucks.
So over the next 52 weeks, I have decided to audit the top 50 Vancouver restaurants per TripAdvisor to see how accurate the list actually is. I am actually an auditor by profession, so here's my plan:
1. Test the validity of the list by eating at the top 50 restaurants and judging if they are top 50-worthy
2. Test the completeness of the list by eating at other random restaurants and judging if they should have been included (à-la-Trois Petits Bouchons)
Now don't take this excursion too seriously. My methodology is full of holes and my benchmark for evaluating them is crazy subjective. If I performed an actual financial audit this way, I would probably get sued for gross negligence. A restaurant being good or bad is relative, and I'm only 1 person. It's not a science or certainty; it's just for fun.
Now you're probably wondering "Now now, that's a lot of restaurants. How are you going to do this without becoming morbidly obese?" Wellll, I've been in Vancouver for 4 days now and I haven't seen an overweight person yet. Therefore, since I am now here, I cannot become obese. Perfect logic, right? But really, I'm adding another goal. Nearly everything in Vancouver is within "walking-distance"...which is Vancouverite for 1 to 60 minutes away...and a lot of it is outdoors-y. Second goal: the top 50 Vancouver attractions per TripAdvisor in 52 weeks. I won't really critique these places since my motivation behind it is really to get to know my new city and get a little exercise in the process.
Go.
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