On a Friday morning, I met Thi Pham, 26, at the Hung Phong Oriental Market. Pham is a Vietnamese-American and Holmes High School graduate enrolled at the Priests of the Sacred Heart seminary.

Pham grew up in a family with many sisters, meaning he didn't get much chance to cook when he was younger. Now, though, he has developed those skills cooking for fellow seminarians. They love his spring rolls and pork rolls, he says. "But, I put a little American twist on my cooking," he admits.

He might dilute the fish sauce, for example. And, though his Vietnamese cooking is authentic, his specialty, he claims, is Italian cream cake and mango ice cream.

Pham showed us around the market, pointing out the array of herbs and vegetables, water spinach, watercress and perfect mangos, duck eggs, aisles jammed with a mind-boggling array of sauces, and fresh seafood, including crabs and crawfish.

We had met on a Friday morning for good reason.

Every Thursday, store co-owner Tuong Thai heads to Houston with a truck, loads it up with fresh shipments of seafood, greens, fruit and other fresh foods and heads back to San Antonio to stock the market.

That's why Friday mornings are the busiest part of the week for Tuong and his brother, Patrick, who are Vietnamese. The Thais opened Hung Phong at another location in 1981. They've been at the current store for the past seven years or so.

Demand expanded the store, which is probably San Antonio's largest Asian market, says Patrick Thai. The diversity of foods is impressive.

"We started with Vietnamese and Chinese food, but now it's grown to include others, like Lao, Korean, Japanese and Filipino," Patrick Thai says.

Just as rice is the most important food to Asian cuisines, it is also the most important product sold at Hung Phong. Along one long wall, laid in rows on pallets, are bags and bags of rice ù 12 to 15 varieties. Each nationality wants its own type and familiar brands.

"The main thing we try to do is keep the rice at a good price, we'll sell it even lower than they do in Houston," says Thai. And for the customers, that's a good reason to keep shopping in San Antonio.