Concrete Playground Meets Judge Bao

in partnership with

Tiger is bringing the excitement of the streets of Singapore to Auckland with an event series featuring art, street eats and beats and hosted by our city's best bars and restaurants.

This Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 10pm, the upstairs of Little Easy will come to life with the buzzing atmosphere and delicious food of an Asian street food market, with Auckland's Judge Bao finding themselves centre stage over the two nights.

We sat down with Debbie, one half of the team behind Chinese pop up stall Judge Bao to find out a little more about the business,  and what she's serving up at Tiger Beer's upcoming Streets of Singapore event.

For further inspiration from Tiger Beer and information on their Streets of Singapore events, click here.

First of all thanks for making Auckland a more delicious city, I've had the pleasure of eating your food a few times and it's phenomenal. For those who don't know, could you tell us a little bit about what you do and what you're all about?

Thanks Ben! Judge Bao is a modern Chinese pop-up eatery, run by myself (Debbie), and my other half Jamie. We take a modern spin on traditional chinese flavours while also staying true to them. We roam Auckland, and pop up at markets, vacant restaurants and other people's venues and we also love to create unique dishes with influences from all cultures, flavours and cuisines.

What inspired you to create Judge Bao?

We both love food haha! But for me I grew up in China eating my home cooking and my mum and Grandma were exceptional cooks. My mum had seven siblings and my grandma had to cook for all of them, as well most of the workers who laboured in my Grandad's factory. My mum learnt cooking through my Grandmother, and I learnt I through my mum. I then started going out with Jamie, (who's been a chef for 17 years). His focus is on European cuisine, he was a chef at Depot, and is very knowledgeable about the technical side of cooking, whereas I'm more of a home chef, with traditional recipes from back home.

Eventually we thought, we both love cooking and eating food, so why not make something of our passion and create our own dishes. We called it Judge Bao (Bao's the chinese word for bun) and we started popping up at markets around Auckland, we decided to use bread, as every culture eats it and it helps make our food relatable to those who haven't tried Chinese cuisine. We've always wanted to disprove the stigmas that sometimes are associated with Chinese Food (that it's unethical or unhealthy) by creating approachable, healthy and seasonal meals. I like to think we create a higher calibre of Chinese street food.

On that note, I've recently seen that the Lewisham Hospitality awards, included "Outstanding Street Food Vendor" in their awards (good luck, with getting a nomination, I'm sure you will). Why do you think this street food trend in Auckland has taken off so much?

Thanks so much! I think there's a lot of people who are really passionate about their food In Auckland, and you need to be passionate about what you do to make it in this industry. There's days where people are lining up and it's awesome, but there's days when no one shows up. Like our first market when we sold 10 buns. (We'd made a hundred and we had to give away the rest for free) so it can be tough. Anyway there's more opportunities for these passionate people these days, because of markets popping up everywhere, and a growing interest in and market for street food. These pop-up vendors and food trucks make food that they love, with heaps of passion and now that there's more opportunities for them to get their food out there people are starting to catch on to how delicious and affordable food served this way can be. They want more. It proves that you don't need a restaurant to make awesome food, that people love.

You're whipping up a fresh new menu inspired by the Streets of Singapore. What can we expect from that?

We're taking inspiration from traditional Singaporean cuisine but also adding our own modern twist to it (as we do). There's going to be a prawn laksa, with a laksa base made from scratch, deep fried chicken wings topped with a punchy and citrusy sambal sauce, and a tiger slider, which is a tiger striped bao bun, stuffed with satay sauce and tofu (for the vegetarians among us).

Ok, I'm really hungry now, that sounds amazing. Before I let you go, what's your favourite item on the Singapore inspired menu?

It's all pretty good..but if I really had to choose I think the sambal chicken is going to be the tastiest. It'll sell out quick so come early!