Something fishy going on

Many of the buyers are Asian, experts in judging the quality and freshness of a crate of fish at a glance. Photo / Supplied

Jane Phare hooks into the early-morning action at the coolest place to catch fish in Auckland

It's 5.15am on a chilly Auckland morning and already fish buyers - everyone from the local chippie through to restaurants and supermarkets - are peering into plastic bins stacked high in the Auckland Fish Market's chiller room.

Many of the buyers are Asian, experts in judging the quality and freshness of a crate of fish at a glance. They've been coming for years and know exactly what species their customers will buy and how much they'll pay.

By 5.45am the auction room, set out like a lecture theatre, has filled with buyers, muffled up in puffer jackets, their debit cards slotted in below the desk. By 6am their fingers are poised above a panel of numbers inset into the table top, their eyes fixed on an electronic board at the front of the room. Buying well is all about knowing your fish and having quick reactions.

Peter Wheeler, the market's auction operations manager, wastes no time. He's got 30 tonnes of fish to sell and his customers need to get the fish back to their shops, skinned and filleted, and ready for sale by the time their shops and supermarkets open for business.

The auction is run Dutch-style with prices starting high and rapidly dropping. The array of fish on offer is startling - eagle ray wings, porae, jack mackerel, piper, herrings, octopus, butterfish, orange roughy, hapuka, butterfly tuna.

Whoever pushes the button first gets the fish and allocates how many crates. The trick is not to miss out but not to overpay.

Hake, terakihi, kahawai, john dory, flounder, gurnard, paddle crabs, kahawai, red cod, bluenose, groper, ruby fish, elephant fish, blue wharehau ... and of course snapper.

Wheeler can't understand the Kiwi obsession with snapper. Why, he wonders aloud after the auction, do consumers fork out more than $40 a kilo for snapper when there are scores of delicious, and much cheaper, alternatives?

Nearly 190 species come through the markets each year, he says. Why not try pan-frying conger eel fillets? Delicious, he assures me.

Forty-eight minutes later the auction is all over and the chiller room fills with men hauling away crates of fish on salt ice. Nearby fishmongers at the Wynyard Quarter market are already deftly skinning and filleting fish, or artfully displaying whole fish on racks, ready for customers who will begin arriving in an hour or so.

Wheeler, who did a BSc in marine biology and environmental science at AUT and is passionate about fish, hopes that at least some of those customers will risk being adventurous and try a new species. Almost everything caught in NZ is edible, he says.
"The perception is if it's ugly it must be awful."

Go to Pak n' Save at Wairau Park, he advises me. "They sell species you've probably never seen before."

Auckland Fish Market, 22 Jellicoe St, Wynyard Quarter. Fish auction runs Monday to Friday at 6am. The public are welcome to watch but only registered buyers can bid. Fresh fish is available to buy at the market next door.

Allow some time for an early-morning wander round a near-deserted Wynyard Quarter, have breakfast at a cafe, check out the superyachts moored off the end of Silo Park and the chain fences full of "love lock" padlocks. And don't miss artist Dick Frizzell's Downtown Tiki that he painted freehand onto a wall in Fish Lane, off Jellicoe.

See a different side to your city. There are 50 secrets waiting to be discovered at heartofthecity.co.nz/lovebites

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