Jason Taniguchi always has Friday-night dinner plans. The Toronto resident eats at a different restaurant every week but never wastes time debating where to go. That's because Taniguchi and his Serial Diners are on a mission: they're eating their way through the Yellow Pages restaurant listings””in alphabetical order. If it's listed, they will go. And Taniguchi hopes Vancouverites will soon follow his lead and learn the ABCs of dining by the letter.

Over coffee at a West Side spot, Taniguchi tells the Georgia Straight that he's been following his culinary quest for 16 years. The group started with the first letter-A listing in the restaurant category in Toronto's phone book in 1989 and is now midway through letter H. At 52 restaurants per year, they figure they'll be done Z by 2035.

It all started when he was a University of Toronto student searching for a hangout. “I really liked the idea of having a place you can go every week and people you know will be there,” he explains. “I liked the idea of the regularity of it. You can go away for a couple months and come back, and it will still be there.” He looked for the perfect eatery, but to no avail. “Then I just spontaneously had the idea, Why don't we just go to the first place in the Yellow Pages?”

Working through the listings, he realized, was much more interesting than frequenting the same place every week. “It did end up becoming the thing I wanted...it just moves around. The club itself became the constant thing, but the place always changes.”

Taniguchi says on average eight to 30 people attend each week, many of them regulars. Serial Diners posts its Toronto agenda and its rules (including all the exceptions) at www.probability.ca/diners/. Anyone is welcome to join, no RSVP necessary. Since the group is constantly evolving, they never know who will show up. No single member has attended every meal since 1989, but three or four original members still have their sights on Z. The group has never missed a week, even when Friday falls on Christmas.

They don't skip listings. Even if they turn up to find a dive, they almost always give it a shot. They only dine elsewhere if, upon assembling at the given address, they find the restaurant closed or too full. In Taniguchi's leaner college years, if a restaurant was deemed unreasonably expensive, they'd have a drink or a salad, and then “fill up at Harvey's” . The hamburger chain is their generic term for going to any restaurant other than the official destination. (“We have yet to 'fill up at Harvey's at Harvey's,' clarifies the Web site. However, they did officially eat there when alphabetically ordered to do so.)

“What's fun about it is it's truly democratic; it's truly equal opportunity,” Taniguchi explains. “We've gone to everything from the posh restaurants, the fancy steakhouses, down to booths in a food court and mom-and-pop burger joints.” The group never looks back, and when a new phone book comes out, they pick up alphabetically where they left off. (New restaurants on pages they've already covered “missed out on us” , Taniguchi says.)

Trends happen within certain clumps of the alphabet. “There was a whole string of the letter A that was nothing but Greek restaurants. You had Asteria, Astoria, Anapolis, Athens, Athena's...” Taniguchi says with a laugh. “The word café took us half a year to get through. It turned out about half of them were Vietnamese karaoke joints.”

Inevitably, they've had some bad meals. “In any given year, there are about two or three meals where the food is just atrocious,” Taniguchi admits. But he rates most places as decent, with some happy surprises. “There are gems hidden throughout the city. And they're places you'd never choose to go to.” For example, they warily entered one bar in a dodgy neighbourhood and ended up feasting on freshly made ravioli and playing pool with the locals.

Taniguchi's friend tried to start a Serial Diners club in Boston but it didn't catch on, partly because certain neighbourhoods were too dangerous to venture into. A club Taniguchi spearheaded in Ottawa last fall, however, has got off to a strong start. He feels Vancouver is ready for the challenge because “there are enough people out there who enjoy doing something a little quirky.”

He urges Vancouverites to e-mail him at vancouverserialdiners@hotmail.com. If there's sufficient interest, he'll arrange the inaugural Vancouver Yellow Pages meal. For more information, see yellowpages.ca/serialdiners/, which hosts the site for the group.

“It's a great way to meet new people, to experience different parts of the city,” Taniguchi enthuses. The group has spawned two marriages and many close friendships. He himself met his wife through a fellow serial diner. His three-month-old son has yet to go on a serial outing, but Taniguchi has big dreams for the little guy. “He's got 18 letters of the alphabet ahead of him,” Taniguchi says, grinning.