Forget Man vs. Food. Forget Andrew Zimmern or Anthony Bourdain. Forget Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri. There is really only one show you should watch about food, Munchies.

Well, maybe that’s a strong opinion. I like a lot of those shows too - but in years of watching and enjoying travel and food shows I’ve never seen a program of the quality of Munchies.

It’s not necessarily the production or the exoticness of the product. It’s not the Vice “cool” factor. Those are personal judgements. Munchies appeal is much more intangible.

Munchies has a simple format. We follow a chef or restaurant owner through a night on the town. It starts with an introduction to the person while he or she talks about their restaurant and from there they go to their favorite spots to drink and eat. At the end of each episode, usually no longer than 15 minutes, they come back to their own restaurant after hours, often drunk, and cook up a feast for their friends and coworkers.

One of the first things that stands out about Munchies is the lack of cynicism. By following someone through what amounts to a pretty good Friday night out, you learn a lot. You understand the people who are trying to make food because they love it. You understand the respect they have for other people doing what they do. Best of all, you get a good understanding of a city or neighborhood of a city from a local person who likes living there.

Munchies is like visiting a friend in another city who takes you out to their favorite spot at night. You get that insider view that is always missing from the bigger shows like No Reservations, another show that I loved.

I have always been searching for that. When blogs were still a new thing I would follow certain people, watch their videos and read their posts and siphon them for unique information. A few frames of a crazy Indian restaurant with Christmas lights, an Instagram photo of a bar basement, I wanted to be able to access an element of their lives so I might be able to see it for myself some day.

As a person who loves to travel, I wanted to visit these beautiful cities — New York, Portland, Chicago, Vancouver — but in my mind I also wanted to see what it was like to be apart of that community. It’s what food critics try to bring us in their columns and what Yelp star ratings and apps like Foursquare have based their business on. You can see the Statue of Liberty and take a picture of it but how do you see the city the way a person who lives there does? I can read a four star review of a bar on Yelp, but what if the bar that’s a way better time only has 3 stars because the bathroom is dirty?

It also has given me a desire to see other places. There was an episode with a chef of a restaurant in Nashville called the Catbird Seat that made me want to visit Tennessee for the first time. It presented this version of an old southern, country music powerhouse that had nothing to do with the Grand Ole Opry or Civil War historical sites. It was distinct in its own way but also inviting and modern and youthful.

It also is one of those programs that gives you a glimpse of the artist’s life. The struggle, the reward, the hardship — the reasons we listen to stories on This American Life and interviews on WTF. The small vignettes of the triumph of interesting, passionate people who got to do the thing they love for a living and who aren’t particularly wealthy because of it. They’re both artists and blue collar workers, putting in the sweat to start something and continuing to sweat to keep it going.

Munchies is inspiring and fun — un-judging and objective. What I see in an episode and love could be boring to another person but it’s not because the episode was deficient, it’s just a relection of your own sensibility. Some chefs get wasted and dress like dandies, others are teetotalers and family men. Some are bros, some are business men. Some have Michelin Stars, some serve pizza on paper plates. They all get the same treatment.

Munchies is the unique program that covers a very specific subject in a very static way and yet is diverse and surprising every time. It’s been one of my favorite watches for a few years now and still, it continues to get better.