There's a saying among Vancouver's 500,000 Chinese inhabitants, "Vancouver Chinese food is better than Hong Kong." Vancouver's Chinese community is based in Richmond, a large suburb whose population is predominantly Chinese. It's there you'll find Vancouver's best Chinese restaurants, but they aren't western style, they're authentic Chinese, such as Dim Sum. In fact, you won't find many western style Chinese restaurants at all in Richmond, surprising in city with that many Chinese people.

The Chinese may be the largest of Vancouver's "minorities," but many nationalities are very well represented, and each has gifted Vancouver with world class offerings of their foreign fare. For example, you'll find hundreds, maybe a thousand, Sushi restaurants in Vancouver, as the locals simply love Sushi. One might think there's a large Japanese community in Vancouver, but that's not the case. Nonetheless, demand for Sushi is so great, it attracted some of Japan's finest chefs to open a restaurant in Vancouver.

A standout is Tojo, with his restaurant, "Tojo's" on Broadway in Vancouver. Tojo's standards are high, to say the least, so high his restaurant attracts the rich and famous from all over the world, whose photos line Tojo's walls. He calls them friends, because they visit so often, and each picture is with Tojo during one of their visits to Tojo's.

I could tell similar stories of Italian, Persian, Thai, French, and Greek cuisine, not to mention Vancouver's seafood, caught fresh daily from the Pacific. Vancouver is a city on the water, so its seafood is plentiful, reasonably priced, and very well prepared by the many specialty seafood restaurants in Vancouver. In the glory days of "Iron Chef," the Japanese cooking contest show, a number of Vancouver chefs appeared and did very well, winning multiple times. One was Rob Feenie, who defeated Japanese chefs at Sushi.

You might guess that Vancouverites are serious about their food, given such options, and you'd be right. Vancouverites love their food. They talk about it, write about it, review it, and allocate much of their budget to dining out. This creates demand for restaurant reviews, and one of the best sources of information are Vancouver blogs, run by many "foodies." They rate restaurants according to quality, price, value, and many other criteria like experience. A good Vancouver blogger knows where to find Vancouver's best, cheapest, and best value food, and can appreciate the experience offered by a restaurant. This saves Vancouverites time and money in their constant quest for new food experiences.