Sherman's Food Adventures: Chewy Junior

Chewy Junior

When Chewy Junior opened up shop in Gastown, it came on the heels of Beta5's ever-popular cream puffs.  Upon closer inspection, Chewy Junior is not a copy-cat, rather, they have been a popular treat since 2007 internationally.  Furthermore, although they look extremely similar, Chewy Junior employs a mochi-pastry hybrid shell.  Hence, the name is only fitting where the overall texture is quite a bit chewier.  Since I am a big fan of the Beta5 version, there was no doubt I had to see what its closest rival was offering up.

I ended up with a dozen cream puffs covering all 9 of their available flavours.  It wasn't cheap where it rivaled the price of Beta5.  The first thing I noticed was the trademark texture where the outside was slightly crispy while the rest of it was chewy.  The first 3 we tried were the Strawberry Cheese, Blueberry Cheese and Neapolitan.  With only mild hits of cream cheese with a touch of glazed fruit, these were not overly sweet.  In fact, the custard filling wasn't too sweet either.  Personally, that was ideal, but for some, it might be on the milder side.  Even the Neapolitan, with the top completely covered in chocolate was pretty easy on the sugar. One thing that I didn't like was the consistency of the filling.  It was quite runny and it splattered all-over-the-place with each bite.  

The next trio was simply very chocolatey including the Chocolate Oreo Crunch, Chocolate Zebra and Double Chocolate Crunch.  With each filled with a chocolate custard, there was no mistaking the predominant flavour.  Yet, they continued the trend of being mildly sweet.  I normally do not like overly chocolatey treats, but these were not bad.  Onto the last 3, we had the Chocolate Almond Crunch, Almond Sweetheart and Matcha Nippon.  Okay, for some reason or another, these were sweeter (except for the chocolate almond).  Possibly the use of white chocolate might've been the culprit.  Overall, I liked how they were mildly sweet.  However, I wasn't a huge fan of the runny custard nor the chewier exterior.  As much as many of us would like to compare it to Beta5, they are not really the same.  With that being said, I do like Beta5 more.

The Good:
- Not overly sweet flavours
- An alternative to gourmet donuts

The Bad:
- Custard too runny
- Pricey

Chewy Junior on Urbanspoon

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