Influencers Abound in Vancouver

What are your eyeballs looking at?

After three years of moving back to Vancouver, I'm finally getting more invitations to food tastings at restaurants. 

While it's a good exercise to get to know the chef, the restaurant and the dishes, eating with influencers is quite the experience.

Some lean into their physical assets

In Hong Kong this was already a trend that was happening before I left, but it seems to have gotten worse? Or crass across the Pacific.

The KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) here dress up in slinky dresses, the lower-cut the neckline the better. In some cases viewers can't help but look at the women's chests than the dishes...

Others don't have tiny figures but have big chests to compensate.

And then their knowledge of food in general is... poor.

This evening I sat with one influencer who couldn't discern flavours very well. She tried a creme brulee and thought it had a ginger taste. I confirmed the initial flavour was lime. 

She also had no idea what a pavlova was, but maybe I should cut her some slack since she has a degree in political science that she doesn't use in everyday life.

In general influencers post videos that make the dishes look good without any critical commentary because well, they think the food tastes great or don't want to jeopardise their opportunity for more invites.

Taking pics of a (good) tiramisu

And then when regular people dine in these restaurants, they may not get the same quality of food... 

Perhaps what's worse is that the entry bar to becoming an influencer is extremely low. And who doesn't want free food and treated like a VIP?