Market Raiders

Frank Sun is holding two red pomegranates. The architect-cum-restaurateur bought them for $7 each from two different fruit stalls at the Graham Street market in Central. He’s planning to hold a mini taste test later, and then he’ll pop back to buy two boxes of the winning fruit for one of his restaurants, Bricolage 62.

It’s a little scene that he has been playing out daily for five years. He visits the oldest street market in Hong Kong to get inspiration and buy ingredients for that night’s menu. “I don’t know what it is, but the food in this market looks fresher, with better color,” he says. “It just looks more lively and appetizing.” And Sun’s not the only one who thinks so. Many of the chefs from SoHo and Lan Kwai Fong prefer to source their produce at their local market rather than food suppliers.

But maybe not for much longer. Under the Urban Renewal Authority’s redevelopment plan for Graham and Peel streets, the market seems to be doomed. “This is not Star Ferry or Queen’s Pier,” Sun rages. “This market represents actual human lives. It is not just supporting the restaurants, but also the people living there – housewives, people coming by in their Mercedes. The market is as much of an icon as Suzie Wong.”

So one afternoon, Sun, his pomegranates, and his Tribute and Bricolage 62 chef, Joe Lau, take us for a tour to show us why. Actually, Sun confesses, they’ve already done their shopping: if you don’t get there quickly, he says, the other chefs will have snaffled all the good stuff. But he seems exhilarated to be back, walking quickly down the street and pointing out the best foods like a kid in a toyshop. “Look at this – this is amazing,” he says every few steps.

We follow with Lau, who has been in the restaurant business for more than a decade. “You can’t pick what you buy if you order from the suppliers – they give you what they choose,” he explains. “Sometimes when a customer thanks us for a good dish, I will be really satisfied, not just because I cooked it well but also because I handpicked the fresh ingredients myself.”

Ahead of us, Sun has stopped at Wah Kee, one of the biggest vegetable retailers at the market. As well as the usual choi sum and pak choi, it sells all kinds of “foreign” vegetables including fennel and portobello mushrooms. “This shop knows that many chefs in SoHo and Lan Kwai shop here, and that many serve Western dishes,” Lau says. “So they know there is a demand for foreign vegetables.” Sun swoops on a treasure – fresh romaine lettuce. The two of them are soon picking through the leaves. We watch, forgotten.

Hang on, haven’t they done their shopping already? Apparently they visit a couple of times a day. “We take turns,” Lau says. “Some come in the morning and others in the afternoon, as the stalls stock up twice a day. There might be fresh produce in the afternoon that you didn’t see on your morning visit.” But if you’re late, all the hawkers can offer is a shrug. Next stop is a vegetable stall at the corner of Gage and Graham streets, with beautiful red tomatoes in one basket and potatoes in another. Every basket is labeled so you know the tomatoes are from Beijing and the potatoes are Idaho, the work of the stallholder, who gets up at 2am to buy the produce. “This is the best place for tomatoes,” Sun says. “Sometimes we buy a lot and they help us by keeping the stock and ripening it for us.”