“I’d like to see the Asia Market all over Ireland.”
Over a lunch of crispy duck and turnip cakes, Asia Market commercial director Eva Pau tells Marie Kelly how she built up her parents’ company from a niche Dublin retail outlet to one of the capital’s culinary and cultural touchpoints.
Eva Pau is such an enthusiastic and attentive interviewee, I’m concerned she won’t take a breath long enough to try the selection of starters chosen for us by Kevin Hui, owner of China Sichuan Restaurant, where we meet to chat about Dublin’s Asia Market, her new television series and this year’s Lunar New Year festival. Pau chose the Sandyford eatery, which kindly opened an hour early to facilitate our lunchtime interview, and Hui layed out a suitably awe-inspiring spread of vibrant and aromatic dishes on a cosy corner table for the doyenne of Asian food in Ireland.
Pau is an equally enthusiastic and attentive host, suggesting I try the crunchy beansprouts, passing over the turnip cakes with vegetarian XO sauce and plating up a portion of crispy duck salad with pomegranate and soya beans. We spend some minutes savouring and praising the flavours and textures – of which there are many – while Pau explains that XO sauce is usually made from dried shrimps and dried scallops but has been reimagined as a vegetarian offering as part of a number of new dishes on China Sichuan’s menu. “In Asia, XO sauce is seen as high-end,” she reveals. Wearing a grey and cream knit midi dress and pink lipstick, Pau fits in perfectly with the posh sauce and white table-clothed surroundings.
“The nice thing about Asian food is you get to try everything,” Pau begins. Another nice thing is that it’s a great ice breaker. As we swap and share starters, Pau and I fall easily into conversation about her long-time obsession with food and cooking. “Mum and Dad were really good cooks,” she explains. “Both were the eldest in their families, so they cooked a lot and Dad bought plenty of cookbooks which lay around the house. I always enjoyed reading them, learning about new ingredients and discovering what matches with what. I started cooking when I was very young and even now all I read is cookbooks. Wherever I sit at home, there’s a stack of them.”
Pau’s father grew up in Guangzhou in China and her mother in Hong Kong. The couple moved to the UK before following Pau’s uncle to Ireland with their one-month-old daughter. Her dad’s younger brother and his wife ran a Chinese takeaway in Rathfarnham and at that time sourced all of their ingredients from the UK. Pau’s father saw an opportunity and he and his wife opened the Asia Market on Drury Street a few doors down from its current location; that was 43 years ago. Thirteen years ago, Pau returned from a decade-long career in private banking in Hong Kong to join the family business.
“They were really taken aback when I told them I wanted to leave Hong Kong and come home. They had never insisted I work in the business. They just let me evolve and do what I wanted to do. I didn’t realise until I joined the Asia Market how much I was going to enjoy it, but I’ve learned so much from my parents over the years – the store was open seven days a week so I spent most of my childhood there when I wasn’t in school – and I’ve always loved to cook so now I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.”
You’ve got to keep on top of what’s trending on TikTok. If it’s an Asian product, you need to have it in store and position it prominently. Right now the Korean red pepper paste gochujang is really big and so are seaweed snacks.
Pau also learned a lot from her time in Hong Kong. The Trinity graduate, who studied information and communications technology before completing an MA in information technology management and organisational change at Lancaster University, says more than anything it brought her out of her shell. “I’m actually quite shy, but in Hong Hong I met a lot of people and started to network for the first time,” she explains.
Pau comes across as incredibly personable; she also appears equally dynamic and determined, so it’s not surprising that under her stewardship, the Asia Market has evolved from a small niche retail outlet into a culinary and cultural touchpoint for the capital. Alongside the expanded Drury Street store, there’s another outlet in Ballymount and an online offering of 4,000 products, while the Asia Market runs its own fleet of 35 vans to supply its restaurant and takeaway wholesale clients. Pau is on the board of Dublin Town and has worked closely with Dublin City Council for many years on the city’s annual Chinese New Year celebrations and she has often hosted tours of the Asia Market and offered tastings there.
The family business is a very different beast four decades after it was first founded. “When I came home from Hong Kong, it was just me and it was really about building the brand; now I have 180 staff. Pau is constantly travelling to stay on top of the latest food trends. “I visit a lot of food fairs and I always think, okay what’s the general message here. One year I was at Thaifex in Bangkok and everything was about truffles. I was in Malaysia earlier this year and it was all about halal food; not just meat but sauces and a whole world of halal foods.”
Social media has just as big an influence on her business as global food fairs. “You’ve got to keep on top of what’s trending on TikTok. If it’s an Asian product, you need to have it in store and position it prominently,” Pau explains. “Right now the Korean red pepper paste gochujang is really big and so are seaweed snacks. It’s strange because Ireland produces a lot of seaweed, but we don’t seem to eat it here. We import a Korean seaweed snack. It’s nice and crispy and comes in different flavours like Himalayan salt, olive oil and barbeque.”
Pau’s product designer husband came on board six years ago and manages the operations side of the business, which suits her perfectly as she confesses she’s an ideas person. “I enjoy coming up with an idea, implementing it and moving on to the next thing.” By the sounds of it, she’s her mother’s daughter. “Mum is such a powerhouse. She’s only 4’11”, but she’s amazing. Her brain works so quickly and she’s always steps ahead. She knows the business inside out and we share an office. I keep developing new ideas and new projects and she’s so accepting of it. She’s like, yeah go do it.”
Right now Pau has her sights set on introducing an Asia Market concession to supermarkets around Ireland, similar to James Whelan Butchers or Baxter & Greene. “That’s certainly where I’d like to go eventually. I can see the growth in Asian food and it’s not just in the Asian community. Irish customers often come into the store with recipes and long lists of obscure ingredients,” says Pau. “I’d love to see the Asia Market all over Ireland.”
It makes sense given how we food shop in Ireland. “Over here, people go to a supermarket, load everything into their car and drive home. In Hong Kong, it’s more like boutique shopping; you visit one market to pick up a fresh chicken or choose a fresh fish, you go to a supermarket to buy sauces and you pick up herbs and vegetables at another market. I was back there in October and the markets always have a brilliant buzz.”
The mother of two admits that even when she’s not working she’s thinking about work. “I just really enjoy it and I’m always trying to improve the business and see where I can take it.” On her days off she just likes to cook. “Being in the kitchen is my comfort zone. Chopping vegetables, smelling ingredients…I love that, and there’s something therapeutic for me about wrapping dumplings.” Her new cooking show for RTÉ, Eva’s Asian Kitchen, which she says will air in early spring, sounds less like business and more like pleasure then. The day before we met, Pau had just finished two weeks of filming and she’s incredibly excited about this new direction.
“It’s been a dream of mine to do something like this so when I was offered the opportunity I was like, yes! Let’s do it,” she admits. “It’s all about imparting the knowledge I have and showcasing how to cook Asian food. Each episode in the series has a theme so the first is all about rice, the second noodles, the third Chinese black vinegar – we use it a lot in Chinese cooking the way balsamic vinegar is used here – and there’s an episode on Asian herbs and vegetables. We also delve into mushrooms because, you know, there’s more varieties than just white and chestnut, and we’ve dedicated an episode to classic Chinese takeaway dishes that are really quick to make like satay chicken.”
Pau is as passionate about introducing Irish people to Chinese culture as she is its cuisine. Being the savvy business woman that she is, Pau understands that an interest in Chinese culture will ignite an interest in Asian food. This is not only good for her but for her wholesale clients who are finding it tough in the current financial climate and Pau is determined not to add to their woes. “The restaurant business is really struggling at the moment: the VAT rate, the high cost of employees, the high cost of everything, yet there’s only so much someone will pay for sweet and sour chicken,” she explains. “We try really hard to support the community by sourcing high-quality ingredients at a good price.”
While she reveals little about what we can expect from this year’s carnival on 2 February, last year she worked with the Chinese embassy to bring over a professional performance and exhibition group from Beijing Municipal government, a traditional Chinese ribbon dancer, a Sichuan opera face-changing performer and a folk art sugar painter. “I love people to experience authentic Chinese entertainment and each year I want to do more and more.” You can expert the works then because Eva Pau does not do things by halves.
This article was originally published in The Sunday Independent, January 2025
