Auckland's hippest food found on the street

Little Easy - Tiger Street Eats. Photo / Tiger

Auckland's food scene has never been so buoyant and, while fine dining restaurants and chic cafes continue to thrive, the dial on the hip food barometer is set towards the street.

The cultural diversity of the city has led to a wide range of exciting new eating options, with immigrants tantalising Aucklanders with ethnic street foods.

Auckland's night markets are a great place to experience the buzz first hand. Held in six suburban venues around the city each week (including Glenfield, Botany Town Centre and Pakuranga), these markets have opened up a world of flavours to locals.

From steam buns to Japanese-style pizza and Korean barbecued meat, the markets provide an excellent taster for those wanting an international food experience without having to leave the 'hood'.

International street food has also the appetite of Kiwi culinary entrepreneurs. At the Street Food Collective in Ponsonby, innovative vendors create dishes as diverse as vegan nachos and giant supersized temaki sushi. Located in an alley between McKelvie St and Richmond Rd, it's quickly earned a reputation as a must-visit food destination.

Great street food was also on display upstairs at Little Easy on Wednesday and Thursday nights this week. Part of the Tiger Streets of Singapore series, the evening paired three new Tiger Beers with authentic flavours of Singapore, courtesy of street vendors Judge Bao and Malaysian Carriage.

Judge Bao specialises in Chinese-food-like-your-mother-would-make but they drew inspiration from Singapore for the event. Their three-dish menu was comprised of prawn star laksa with puffed tofu and mung beans, wing wing haro (fried chicken wings with sambal, caramel, and lime and fish sauce dip), and the striped Tiger Slider containing tofu, satay sauce, cucumber in a hand-rolled steamed bao.

Malaysian Carriage served a selection of traditional Malaysian street fare including dumplings, curry puffs, chicken satay and roti canal with curry sauce.

Judge Bao is owned and run by British expat Jamie Johnstone and Debbie Orr, who is of Chinese descent. It represents chef Jamie's first foray into Chinese food.

"I worked for a few top chefs in New Zealand since I moved here nine years ago, including with Michael van der Elzen when he was at Molten and Al Brown at Depot," he explains. "I'd been cooking European food for so long I was at the point where I started thinking do I want to be a head chef or executive chef and do my own thing."

He laughs that he wanted to "do something I'd never done before and something that would scare the crap out of me!"

Inspiration was close to home. "When I came home from work at 2am, Debbie would be cooking me a traditional Chinese meal. Her grandmother would cook similar dishes for all the men in a factory near where she lived," he says.

He says the thought process behind Judge Bao was to make this kind of food accessible to other people - "to take the classics from how and do it to a restaurant quality."

They have been running the stall for nearly two years and it's been met with accolades aplenty, including write ups in some leading food publications.

His brief sojourn into Singaporean food was still heavy on Chinese inspiration and paid homage to Tiger Beer's new range.

"The Tiger Bao was inspired by a dish that originates in the Sichuan area. Our version is topped with coriander and has stripes of organic stone-ground green sesame on the sides of the bun to resemble the markings of a tiger," he says.

Head to Tiger Beer NZ's facebook page to find out about upcoming Tiger Streets of Singapore events.