If you follow Vancouver's "Follow Me Foodie" Mijune Pak on Instagram it's easy to feel these days like the famous food lover is kind of everywhere. She's eating meals in Vancouver and elsewhere around the globe day in and day out, appearing as a judge in the just-launched newest season of Top Chef Canada, and lending her palate and name to a set of limited-release chocolate bars at the city's popular BETA5.
Photo courtesy BETA5
Pak's #MijuneXBETA5 debuted Wednesday, April 10, and features two bars created with BETA5's master chocolate craftsman Adam Chandler and his team. For both bars, Pak turned to familiar and favourite Asian flavours.
The Kaya Toast bar was inspired by Pak's love of the South Asian breakfast staple, with its caramelized white chocolate, pandan, coconut and toasted milk bread crumb designed to echo the experience of having kopi (coffee) served with kaya jam on buttered and crustless toast, sometimes dipped in soft boiled eggs, in Malaysia and Singapore.
Related:
- V.I.A. Podcast Ep. 26: Mijune Pak of Top Chef Canada and Vancouver’s Follow Me Foodie
- Top Chef Canada is back, and four B.C. cheftestants could grab the glory
The second bar is Yin Yeung Cha, inspired by Pak's travels in Hong Kong and a traditional drink melding coffee and tea; it's a triple flavour combination with white chocolate and Hong Kong-style milk tea with crystallized Orange Pekoe tea leaves on one side, and 40% milk chocolate and coffee on the other.
“I'm a perfectionist, that’s why I wanted to work with Adam Chandler and the BETA5 team on my first product collaboration,” says Pak in a media release. And if you do follow her on Instagram, you'll have been seeing many, many trips to BETA5 lately to make sure the bars are absolutely perfect, down to the packaging.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv5beNCl7tp/
“Mijune brought her unique perspective to the conversation, and combined with our expertise in developing uniquely delicious chocolate and pastry items, we’ve managed to distill each flavour experience down to it’s essence, and transform them both into very special products," adds Chandler.
You can find the #MijuneXBETA5 bars in-store and online, and on Saturday, April 13, you can meet Pak in person. She'll be on hand from 1 to 3 pm at BETA5 (413 Industrial Ave in Vancouver) to chat with customers about the collaboration.
