What’s wrong with food media

A story caught my eye last week. Cherry’s Food House, a smaller restaurant in Richmond, was looking to increase their visibility. So they brought in some online food influencers to eat their food and post about it. 

One influencer ordered $600 worth of free meals, at a relatively inexpensive restaurant, trucking the food home, and then failing to even post about the restaurant. 

Small businesses and restaurants struggle to make money. Many end up closing. It takes a certain kind of person — one who loves people, food and community, who can manage long stressful hours, is a little crazy and far too persistent for their own good — to open up a restaurant.

Yet restaurants, especially places like Cherry’s Food House, are what make our cities so wonderful to live in. The simple pleasure of going out with friends, ordering a meal and drink, spending time together in a new place, and exploring different cuisines, cuts to the heart of why we live where we live.

Yet, the world restaurants are forced to operate in, outside of the financial challenges, is one designed to strip away what makes eating so enjoyable. I am of course talking about the social media algorithm.

The algorithm has its perks, but in my experience, causes more pain than benefit for everyone.

Restaurants' offerings need a certain level of movement, colour, and vibrancy, what I would call artificiality, to break through on places like TikTok. Chefs adapt, and restaurants redesign, all to get views and shares. 

For creators, the algorithm demands that they pump out as much content as possible. Videos are stylized to capture attention immediately, short one-minute clips boiled down to a binary choice, was it good or bad? Will it get me more views? 

For guests, the restaurant experience is turned into a checkbox, a place to say you visited. Learning about a type of food, the subtle nuances of the ingredients, the history of how the food evolved to this point, it’s all lost in an attempt to hit the hottest TikTok restaurant. Hidden gems? I hate to break it to you, but they’re never actually hidden when the algorithm serves it up to you and ten thousand others.  

This story about  Cherry’s Food House sums up what’s wrong with food media, not just in Vancouver, but in every other major city. It’s why we’re trying to do things a little differently here at the Lookout.

We believe the diversity of restaurants is one of the biggest reasons people live in cities. Restaurants deserve our support, which is why we pay for all our meals. 

Looking at photos or videos isn’t reviewing. Every place and food we recommend or write about, is something we’ve visited and tasted. (A food reviewer I recently met in New York noted very few of the reviewers in that city actually visit restaurants they write about). 

We don’t accept payment for restaurant reviews. Trust with you, our readers, is the single most important thing we have. We won’t break that for some money. 

We don’t create social media TikTok-style videos. We write restaurant reviews that tell a story about the place, the people and food. Nuance, story and context, it all matters. 

Some may call it old-fashioned. And it may be true. But something is wrong when we rely entirely on social media, and what the algorithm spits out, to explore a city’s food scene.

I write all this because after eating at so many tiny Vietnamese pho shops, Chinese food court stalls that only accept cash, immigrant-run husband and wife duos making food from their home country, the places that don’t get attention on social media are worth visiting. 

Not relying on social media is hard. The easiest way? Visit that small restaurant in your neighbourhood you keep walking by. Chances are, it’s worth a visit. 

• Tips to explore new places: The biggest change in my restaurant experience after becoming a food reviewer is picking a neighbourhood to explore and just stopping at different restaurants after walking around. No amount of online research will help you find these places. 

If you like what we’re doing here at the Lookout, and want to invest in local media that is doing real restaurant reviews, consider becoming a member today.

DISH OF THE WEEK

Chicken sandwich and curly fries

The dish of the week is a chicken sandwich I had at It’s Okay in June, a neighbourhood restaurant and pub. I absolutely loved it and plan on writing a full review. 

The chicken burger was outstanding, a simple meal that while not as good as the best in the city, is certainly worth ordering.

What put it over the top were the curly fries. Sometimes you just want curly fries. And these ones rock.