Eva Pau: 'Literally overnight, the online business was just like three-fold growth.' Photograph: Alan Betson

For some fortunate business owners, the pandemic presented unprecedented opportunities for growth, and Eva Pau, operations director of Asia Market, was poised to exploit that potential. The Image Businesswoman of the Year 2022 had begun a project six years ago to develop an online shopping platform for her family firm’s business, in addition to their Drury Street and Ballymount stores. By the time we were housebound and desperately searching for inspiration, and access to ingredients, for our home cooking marathons, she had implemented an ecommerce system that has since grown from an initial offering of 350 items to more than 4,000 products that can be delivered anywhere in Ireland.

“Literally overnight, the online business was just like three-fold growth,” she says. “I know more people are heading back into the stores now, but actually the online is still not down to where it was before, and I want to keep growing that.” The next move, as Pau sees it, is to work towards same-day delivery. The firm’s wholesale customers are serviced by their fleet of 20 vans. “We have a distribution system for restaurants and takeaways, for online orders we use a courier firm. But I want to look at that and hopefully in time, have same-day delivery. I think expectations are higher now. I’m aiming for that at the moment.”

Drury Street branch of Asia Market. Photograph: Alan Betson

Drury Street branch of Asia Market. Photograph: Alan Betson

Ambition, supported by hard work, is in the Alexandra College and Trinity College educated businesswoman’s DNA. Her mother and father, Helen and Howard Pau, came to Ireland from the UK and opened the first Asia Market on Drury Street 41 years ago. “Mum and dad worked seven days a week, so when I was young, I was with them all the time in the shop. Mum is managing director, she is still so active, I would love to have the amount of energy she has. Dad is mainly the one sourcing products, he loves to travel.”

After completing an MA in Information and Communications Technology at Trinity College and a MSc in Information Technology Management and Organisational Change at Lancaster University, Pau headed for the bright lights of Hong Kong, where she worked for international financial institutions. But the only-child’s connections with home were strong, and she returned to Dublin 11 years ago.

She now lives in Terenure with her husband Tom, a product designer who invented the Turbospoke children’s bicycle exhaust system that sells worldwide, and their children George (five) and Camilla (17 months). The couple now work together at Asia Market. “His brother is still doing Turbospoke and Tom moved on to work with me five years ago. At that time I was doing operations and business development, so now he is in operations and I’m more business planning.”

Eva Pau: 'Ballymount still has a lot of potential to grow. I want to make it more of a destination store.' Photograph: Alan Betson

In addition to the wholesale and retail Asian food businesses, the Pau family also own Duck, a food outlet on Fade Street in Dublin 2, specialising in Hong Kong-style barbecued duck, pork and chicken, and Eva plans further expansion in this area. “I definitely want to try and grow more food brands. I’d love to do something new, food-related.”

She has an idea of what she would like to bring to the Irish market, but is reluctant to divulge details other than to say: “When I was travelling in Asia, I was like, yeah, that would work.” The expansive Ballymount store, on an industrial estate just off the M50, is also earmarked for further development. “Ballymount still has a lot of potential to grow. I want to make it more of a destination store. So when people go there, they can shop, then have something to eat and relax.”

She is also working on Asia Market Express, which will increase the company’s reach beyond the shops and online store. “I want to work with the Chinese restaurants we supply, to have an Asia Market aisle for our food, and in takeaways you could find an Asia Market goods counter.” As the wholesale accounts make up 75 per cent of their business, there is significant potential for growth here. “I’m working on that at the moment,” she says.

There is a cookbook in the mix, too. “I want to bring out a cookbook for Asia Market, not just Chinese cooking but a melting pot of Japanese and Korean, some Malaysian too.” She is an accomplished cook with a significant cookery book library, and hopes to have some of her own recipes, as well as guest-chef recipes in the book. “We have a lot of friends of Asia Market, so I’m thinking it would be great to have some of their recipes included as well.”

Drury Street branch of Asia Market. Photograph: Alan Betson

Drury Street branch of Asia Market. Photograph: Alan Betson

It’s not all boom, though. There are difficulties to be overcome in the post-pandemic environment too, including ongoing supply problems as factories in Asia struggle to meet increasing demand for their products, as well as fallout from Brexit. “Brexit really impacted on our stores as we used to bring in quite a lot of retail lines from the UK. A lot of suppliers weren’t prepared for the paperwork, although it was in train for years. We could delist 30/40 lines overnight. We used to get maybe 12 or 13 pallets of things from the UK, and that literally stopped overnight.”

Naively, I had assumed the massive range of Asian fresh produce, especially vegetables, fruit and herbs, arrived in Drury Street and Ballymount fresh off the plane from Thailand, China or Vietnam. But in the main they are sourced through distribution in hubs in continental Europe, and it is to them that Asia Market has had to look to fill gaps in their supply chain. They are also stocking Asian vegetables grown for them by a Chinese woman and her Irish husband in Rush, North Co Dublin.

Despite her achievements, winning the Image PwC Businesswoman of the Year title earlier this year came as a surprise to Pau. “I applied for the management category and I didn’t get the award, so I was thinking, okay I can let my hair down now. I thought the overall winner would be chosen from the winners of each category. I was actually thinking I must have done really badly not to even be runner-up.” But as the ceremony came to its conclusion and the citation for the evening’s main award was read out, she heard familiar snippets from her career being referred to, and she was called to the podium. “I was totally overwhelmed,” she says.

As well as enjoying cooking Asian food at home, Pau likes to go out to eat, and Italian and Vietnamese foods are her favourites. But if it’s a family occasion, it’s usually dim sum. “In South Asia like we go for dim sum a lot. If I was gathering the family, it would be at the Good World restaurant. I think it’s just comfort food for me. And it’s a really relaxed environment. I love the old-style decor as well, I feel like it’s really cosy. I guess I’ve been going there for so long that I just instantly relax when I go in there.”

Eva Pau: 'Brexit really impacted on our stores as we used to bring in quite a lot of retail lines from the UK. A lot of suppliers weren’t prepared for the paperwork.' Photograph: Alan Betson

CJ Haechandle Korean soybean paste: I use a lot of miso in marinades, with a bit of soy or mirin, and it creates a lovely kind of umami flavour. You can also make a soup from it as well. I think it’s just healthy for us as a family with kids. I always have it in my fridge.

Jimmy’s satay sauce: This sort of is a Hong Kong style satay sauce. I guess it’s not as peanutty as the satay we would be used to, which would be from Singapore. There’s a bit of shrimp paste in it, it adds so much depth of flavour.

Fortune Chilli Flavoured Oil with Crispy Shrimps: Everyone goes for the Lao Gan Ma chilli crisp, it’s one of the bestsellers, online as well. Everybody goes for that one. I like this one. It’s good for adding on top of noodles or rice, but I like to sometimes add it when I’m making a sauce and put into a stir fry as well.

Hainanese Chicken Rice Paste: You can add it to the water when you’re boiling rice or stir it in when it’s cooked and it adds a lovely flavour.

ChanChan Black Garlic Infused Balsamic Vinegar: This one is made by [Chinese/Irish TV chef] Kwanghi Chan. I recently used this and it was just amazing. I added a spoonful to a salad and it gave it so much flavour.

Beksul pancake mix: This is a Korean pancake mix for making like a seafood pancake. I love this one. You can make it yourself with rice flour but I think this one just gives it a chewier texture and it’s easier to fry it.