Canada’s Glamorous Gourmand Mijune Pak Talks About Building A Life in Gastronomy 殿堂級食評家•白敏令

ENGLISH 英 : Shinan Govani with edits from Deirdre Kelly • CHINESE 中 : Ophelie C.
Location: EPOCH Bar & Kitchen Terrace + The Ritz-Carlton Suite, The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto
Photography: Jackson Huang • Assistant: Jonah Wiley
Art Direction: Deborah Lau-Yu • Videography: Fête Chinoise Team
Fashion & Styling: Lisa Fang • MAKEUP & HAIR: Ivy Lam
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Raveena Marwah
As Featured in Annual Book of Incredible People Edition No. 11: The next Chapter

Her curiosity is boundless, as is her appetite. So it’s jarring to hear that Mijune Pak had trouble keeping food down while travelling through Dubai, Oman, Qatar, and the Maldives earlier this year. “Za’atar. Cumin. Normally, I love all that stuff,” she says, making a face at the memory.

But normal wasn’t her state at the time: she was in her first trimester, expecting her first child. Those scents simply weren’t agreeing with her.

An unusual experience for a woman who typically visits around 700 restaurants a year (her high point was more than 800 in one year), was once named one of the “world’s most extreme foodies” by The Sunday Times, and is perhaps best known as a sagacious judge on Top Chef Canada, the country’s premier cooking competition show. A woman who truly eats everything, everywhere: grilled, steamed and sautéed; pickled, kneaded and smeared.

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常言道「民以食為天」，有沒有想過，「識食」也可以開創一番事業？加拿大著名美食達人、《加拿大頂尖廚師》（Top Chef Canada）及《加拿大料理鐵人》（Iron Chef Canada） 評審 Mijune Pak (白敏令) 就憑其一張嘴，開創豐盛人生。

「吃，是我很喜歡的事情！」Mijune 可算是名副其實的「吃貨」。作為加拿大炙手可熱的著名食評人，餐廳試菜邀請絡繹不絕，一年造訪超過七百間餐廳，高峰期一年嚐遍八百間餐廳。

對食物充滿好奇的她什麼都吃，而且吃得講究，曾被英國《星期日泰晤士報》譽為「全球最極致的美食家」之一。無論是煎、炒、煮、炸、清蒸以至醃製，只要得到她舌尖味蕾肯定，即可晉身為名菜。

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To say food is an obsession is an understatement. 

Her career arc is one she literally willed into being, thanks in part to the flourishing of the internet. The signs were there from an early age for the Vancouver-based gourmand.

“Eating is what I liked to do,” she says with finality. It was her thing, even though she didn’t grow up in a family of “foodies,” or hail from one owning an Asian-style restaurant. “My dad is a simple Chinese man,” she says. “He could have wonton noodles every day for the rest of his life, or BBQ pork, and he would be super happy.” Her mom, a fashion and interior designer, was different – skilled at the stovetop in ways Pak only later came to appreciate. “All the Asian moms I knew tended to be good cooks. Only later in life did it strike me as special.”

As a kid she sometimes acted out having her own cooking show, or “played restaurant.” A best friend up the street helped deepen her passions. Together, they would indulge in making after-school snacks: cakes, gingerbread houses, you name it. “Anytime we got into a disagreement, a way to make it disappear was by saying, ‘OK, do you want to go eat something?’ We wouldn’t need to talk about the issue. We would just eat our feelings.”

食在童年

像她這樣的食評家，必然是自小養成？非也，Mijune 笑說：「媽媽廚藝很了得，但我一直身在福中不知福；

爸爸是一個普通的華人，他是那種可以每天吃雲吞麵或叉燒便滿足，非常開心的人。」

回顧她的童年，小時候的 Mijune 跟很多女孩子一樣愛玩「煮飯仔」；不同的是，她的摯友同樣愛吃、愛烹飪，兩人的課後活動就是自製零食。兩雙小手創造出大大小小的蛋糕、薑餅屋等甜點。兩個「小吃貨」若有矛盾也是靠吃解決。「一旦我們有任何衝突，解決的方法就是說，『好吧，現在你想吃什麼？』無須爭論，我們自然地吃掉彼此的矛盾！」

She started regularly frequenting restaurants when in her early teens. “Earls or Cactus Club or, you know, a neighbourhood restaurant I had read about on a blog. I thought it was so cool. I would literally save up. I was like 13 to 15 years old, and it’d be the thing I would most want to spend my money on.” Another early memory involves going to Chambar, a trendy Vancouver spot, and encountering Belgian-inspired bistro food for the first time.

Her expanding palate was matched by her growing fascination with food television. The Food Network was then on the rise, and she also remembers discovering Julia Child and shows such as What’s For Dinner? The mid-2000s brought a new wave of TV cooking personalities, including Rachael Ray and Anna Olson.

Pak was inspired and at some level wanted in on that world, “but it would be like saying I want to be a superhero. Not realistic. Culturally, it was not really promoted to get those jobs. Food critic? There was no path to that.”

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So, she swept those dreams aside. “I wouldn’t even call them dreams,” she adds, “because I couldn’t even dream them.”

A semester abroad at Utrecht University during her final semester at Simon Fraser University only heightened her culinary interests. While studying in the Netherlands during her first time away from home and her first foray into Europe, she really started using food as a way to befriend people and as a means of cultural investigation. She also used that time to travel widely across fourteen countries, including Spain, Germany and Poland.

Armed with a well-worn Hilroy notebook, she began making copious notes of all her meals. She also started taking pictures. “With a real camera,” she adds.

Looking back, she was unknowingly laying the groundwork for her future career.

覓食之旅

青少年期間更離不開吃，Mijune 十三歲開始「蒲」餐廳，當時喜歡連鎖餐廳 Earls 或者Cactus Club，「那時我大概十三至十五歲，會特意存錢去吃，那是我最想花錢的地方了！」

那年頭飲食文化方興，Mijune 受到 Julia Child、 Rachael Ray 以及 Anna Olson 等名人啟發，同時追捧《晚餐吃甚麼？》（What's For Dinner？）等飲食節目，對鎂光燈下的飲食業界嚮往不已，卻不曾想過躋身其中。她坦言：「這就像說『我想成為超級英雄』一樣，太不切實際了！從文化角度來看，很難以此為業。做食評家？根本沒有途徑吧！」

「我不會說那是一個夢想，因為我做夢也沒想過。」Mijune 食出未來，原來不是始於追夢，而是源於對美食由衷的熱愛和好奇。

食評家之路，她逐步走出來。大學生涯最後一個學期，她第一次出國，從荷蘭出發食勻歐洲14國！食，絕對是 Mijune 生活和旅遊的主軸，透過美食交朋友、了解和探索別國文化，她會拿着筆記本認真記錄吃過的每一道異國佳餚。在那個手機相機還未普及的年代，她更是帶着沉重的相機，認真記錄。

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Returning to Canada, she continued documenting her meals. It was the early era of blogs, and her sister, who was dabbling as a fashion and makeup blogger, encouraged Pak to do the same. But about food. “But I don’t know anything about the computer!” she exclaimed. She learned, though. Fast.

“It was like a dopamine hit,” she says, describing the experience of getting views on her food reports, some of which would top 2,000 words per restaurant visit.

While making do with a day job doing marketing for Paramount Pictures, the budding blogger was going to farmers’ markets and culinary events. She started to receive invitations to food-centric junkets around the world. To Jamaica. To London.

As much as it may have looked as if she were suddenly soaring, Pak confesses she was “flatlining.” After seven years of blogging, a career restlessness had set in, compounded by seeing so many of her friends buying homes and settling down. “People didn’t see the dips. I didn’t let them see the dips. It is easier to talk about it afterwards,” she says.

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Then Top Chef Canada came calling. The homegrown extension of TV’s most beloved food competition show presented an opportunity. Encouraged to try out for a role by its resident judge, Chef Mark McEwan, she went for it, even though a part of her thought it unlikely. She had too much going against her, she felt: she was from Vancouver, not Toronto; she wasn’t a journalist and she wasn’t a trained chef. Additionally, she was an Asian woman in a male-dominated industry.

Her opportunity came when she went to dinner with the executive producers from the show at upscale Toronto restaurant, One. It was her chance to prove herself worthy of the role. Where some might have felt intimidated by the high-stakes setting, Pak proceeded to pontificate on every dish with natural authority. “I was just being myself. I was like, ‘This profiterole? This is where it originates from, etc., etc.’ A normal night out for me, actually!”

從網誌走進電視圈

現在看來，一切都在為 Mijune 晉身食評家鋪路。她坦言開始時沒有明確目的，只是忠於對食物的熱愛，命運卻一步一腳印地帶她走上錦繡前程。從筆記簿到網上博客，她的食評令讀者垂涎欲滴，同時她亦會認真回應讀者留言。每次看到文章瀏覽量飆升時，她自覺多巴胺急升，每次撰寫食評動輒超過兩千字，對細節與分享的執着可見一斑。當年在派拉蒙電影公司從事市場推廣工作，讓她學會市場推廣的概念，以致日後她獲得國際性的合作機會。

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「大家看不到我的低谷，我沒讓人知道，現在才可以輕描淡寫說出來。」正如所有成功人士必然經過生活的低潮，她曾眼看朋友一個個置業成家，一邊擔心自己一生平平無奇。

默默努力，Mijune 終於在名廚 Mark McEwan 引薦下在多倫多 ONE 餐廳與《加拿大頂尖廚師》監製洽談，她一如平常大談對每道菜的心得和品評，結果贏得監製青睞成為《加拿大頂尖廚師》評審，改變了人生的軌跡，穩步成為加拿大舉足輕重的食評家。

Her encyclopedic knowledge of food, displayed so effortlessly in that elite setting, sealed the deal and landed her the role. Since then, her resident judge position has opened doors to numerous opportunities: serving as a host for Michelin Guide in Vancouver, being appointed International Culinary Expert by the city’s tourism arm Destination Vancouver and collaborating on limited-edition retail products with local producers.

On negotiating her own identity being on such a high-profile show, Pak is circumspect. Earlier on, she admits, “I shamefully wanted to be the least Asian I can be. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. I was like: I’m not born in Asia. I’m born in Canada. Keep me in the mainstream. That’s how I felt then.”

But with the mounting dialogue about Asian representation, in recent years, she’s had a rethink. “What did I do?” she remembers asking herself. “Why was I saying no when I should have been saying yes?” 

Ever since, she’s sought to make herself more visible as Asian. “I learned to embrace it — to run towards the Asian identity, and be a voice for Asian competitors by sharing cultural references, history, and how the food is represented on the show and in the broader Canadian food scene. I want to give the cuisine justice — from a voice that grew up with those dishes and flavours."

成功的感悟

作為知名食評家，婚禮的餐飲自然也不馬虎。她與科技企業家 Romain Rey 的婚宴被 《Vancouver Magazine》 形容為「幾乎是一場美食節」。為期多天的婚禮招待了二百七十位賓客，最後一晚設有十七個由不同名廚主理的餐飲站，包括現場製作的西班牙海鮮飯、專人即切的火腿台、配備真正炭爐的印度料理區，還有包括手工雪糕吧、珍珠奶茶站等在內的七個甜品專區。其中最令人驚喜的是由《加拿大頂尖廚師》2024年冠軍、溫哥華名廚 Chanthy Yen 打造的創意甜品，靈感源自香港經典白兔糖。她憶述：「真的非常誇張！」

風光背後， Mijune 曾經對自我充滿否定：自己來自溫哥華，不是多倫多人、不是傳媒人出身、也不是廚藝了得的廚師，亞裔的身份更是心中的一條刺。她憶述：「我曾希望亞裔身份不被發現，我不想被標籤。我覺得自己不是在亞洲出生，而是在加拿大土生土長的，渴望被看成主流的一分子。」

Discussing her takeaways from Top Chef Canada and her impressions of those who compete after years of being on the judging panel, Pak talks about how the show can be as much about endurance as anything else. “It really is, you’re only as good as your last dish. You can be ahead, racking up victory after victory, but make one misstep, and you’re out.”

There’s also the challenge of cooking your own style while meeting specific criteria. “You have to know how to roll with the punches,” Pak says.

Sometimes, too, it simply comes down to a game of expectations when presenting a dish. “How you describe the dish, what you name it, how you sell it,” she explains.

As for how she deals with the demands of eating while on set, she quips: “I eat so much on a daily basis that being on the show, those are probably my diet days.”

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當她在食評界站穩陣腳後，終於能勇敢、高調地擁抱亞裔身份，甚至為亞裔的參賽者發聲，扶助亞洲美食登上加拿大美食殿堂。如今她給參賽者的忠告也是要相信自己：「要煮出自己的風格難免會緊張，但必須忠於自己，讓作品傲視同群。」

她也分享節目中選手面臨的一大挑戰，就是要平衡創意與規則，「你要懂得隨機應變。」有時勝負只在於一道菜的命名與描述方式——「你如何命名、如何介紹，甚至如何賣這道菜，都可能影響評審的觀感。」至於評審自己要吃多少？她笑言：「我平常吃的量比上節目更多，所以錄影的日子反而是我的『減肥日』！」

The professional and personal sides of her life converged when she married Romain Rey, a tech entrepreneur born and raised in France last year. The couple’s menu was no afterthought. Vancouver Magazine, in a later writeup, called it “practically a food festival.” Describing the multi-day affair with 270 guests, culminating with a night of seventeen stations with seventeen different chefs, Pak herself falls into a reverie.

“We had everything from a live paella-cooking station to a jamon carving station and an Indian station with an actual tandoori oven. All the chefs were either Michelin-recommended, Michelin-starred, Top Chef alumni, or from award-winning local restaurants. There was a massive pecorino wheel and seven dessert stations: a gelato bar, a bubble tea station and more. One standout was a dessert inspired by Hong Kong’s beloved White Rabbit milk candy, created by Chanthy Yen, the Vancouver chef who won Top Chef Canada in 2024. 

 “It was insane!” she says.

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訪問時，Mijune 正準備邁入人生新階段，肚內的孩子正默默聽着媽媽訴說成功故事。懷孕初期，她曾出訪杜拜、阿曼、卡塔爾與馬爾代夫時，竟然一反常態，對一向喜愛的百里香、小茴香等中東香料感到極度排斥，食慾全失。這經歷對一向無所不嚐的她而言實屬罕見，過往走遍全球試菜的生活也看來必須要改變。

她希望未來仍能跟孩子分享對美食的熱情，「我將為這個新角色告別舊生活，也感到有點焦慮，且看看會如何。我的性格一向充滿好奇，對於改變保持開放的態度，希望我能好好處理，事情就會有好的發展！」

On the cusp of giving birth when she spoke with Fête Chinoise in June, Pak was clearly looking forward to the next phase of her life, even if she wasn’t quite clear what it would look like for the seasoned traveller and dedicated food enthusiast. “This is going to be a huge transition moment,” she says.

“For most of my life, I’ve been taking things as they come,” she adds, knowing she won’t be able to travel sixty per cent of the year as she has for so long. Though, she does relish the idea of one day sharing her enthusiasm for food with her child.

“I’m partly scared of saying bye to this older version of me and stepping into this role and seeing what it has to offer. Naturally, my personality is always so curious and open to changes, so I hope I will be able to handle it. It has to be good if I’m excited about it.”

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