Dead Link Removed
Whilst not a purchaser of the products there, they do have a nice feature in the layout that most of the films they sell are marketed with example photo's that give an indication of the results you might expect. If nothing else it allows side by side comparison of the merits of Portra VC vs NC
NC IMHO is a little different from traditional consumer films in that it doesn't "Pop" colour with high intensity. It may be considered very accurate, but prehaps a little flatter than you might be used to. VC is more well "Vivid"
If you want high saturation prints Ektar is something to consider.
Fuji also make good colour films but side by side with Kodak, the pallette is a little different.
For photographing food, I suppose it depends if there a lot of vivid colours (Tomatoes, peppers etc) which may look a little dayglo with VC. Conversely stuff like pastry may benefit from a VC variant to make it look a little richer.