The Journey to Becoming Vancouver’s Top Food Influencer – Emma Choo

With a UBC degree in Sociology and a Minor in Law & Society, Emma anticipated a career in law. However, after working for a law firm for a short period of time, she realized that it was not for her. 

“You only have one life to live and you better live it now”, says Emma. While she maintained her account as a hobby throughout her graduation years in university, she eventually made the decision to dive into content creation for @vancouverfoodie full-time. 

A turning point in her career came in 2017 when Emma won the TasteHKG social media competition by Chinese Restaurant Awards. Co-presented with the Hong Kong Tourism Board, TasteHKG offered Canadian social media influencers an opportunity to meet the new visionaries of Chinese cuisine outside of Canada. 

As the winner of the competition and the first Canadian Social Media Ambassador for #TasteHKG, Emma traveled to Hong Kong for a 7-day trip with exclusive insider tastings and tours. She attended meet-and-greets and tastings with gastronomic giants such as Alvin Leung (MasterChef Canada judge) of Bo Innovation: X-Treme Chinese Cuisine, Mok Kit Keung (Chinese Master Chef), Lau Yiu Fai (Chinese Master Chef), and Lee Man Sing from the SCMP 100 Top Tabels’ Mott 32. 

See her full tour of Hong Kong’s top restaurants here. 

Emma loves engaging with people, and to that end, she is always on the lookout to try new things, whether it is inviting her viewers to join her on taste-tests or inviting them to travel with her and explore various food cuisines in the world. 

You would imagine being an influencer, talking about food, traveling and vlogging would be a cakewalk. However, the reality of being an ‘influencer’ is not as it looks from the outside, explains the Vancouver Foodie, “People see only the good parts, and that is literally our job, to make it seem effortless and pleasant. But what you see is probably 10% of what goes on behind the scenes.”