The best part of the Jingshen Seafood market - Beijing's biggest purveyor of fish - is not only the great value, but also getting your oceanic victuals cooked right in front of you. That's right, any way you like - steamed, fried, pan-fried, stewed, boiled, you name it.

The three-story building, east of Guangcai Road in the city's south, includes both stalls and a big restaurant, sell enormous kinds of seafood, ranging from frozen mantis shrimp to live lobsters, and crabs.

The restaurant is on the third floor which houses 10 food stands. Hand over your purchase (packaged in plastic bags by the fishmongers) to the waitress and they will deliver it to cooks who work their culinary magic. The cooks hail from various parts of China, including Taipei, Xiamen and Dalian, and they conjure up dishes in their regional style.

The dishes were served within 10 minutes. Tender abalone with rice and topped with a sweet sauce tasted delicious. And if you want extra sauce, go ahead and ask - it's free.

It took a little time to pull the meat from the shell with the scallops drizzled with minced garlic pickled in vinegar. But it was well worth the wait. Despite the adventure in cutting open the freshly cooked scallops, they were tender and juicy.

Inside the market itself, hundreds of outlets are arrayed across a large hall. The stalls are like a huge aquarium. Tanks of crawling lobsters and crabs and piles of flat fish, bass and yellow croakers greet visitors.

Dazzled by the assortment and the reasonable wholesale prices, the impulse is to buy as much as possible. One scallop costs only 1 or 2 yuan, and an abalone was only 5 yuan, easily half the price in other shops in the city.

If you are not a seafood expert, just ask the stall operators to help you find the freshest. They will tell how to test whether a scallop is alive or not by tapping on its shell or how to judge the freshness of salmon by differentiating its color. After picking out what you want, the stall holders will professionally pack your selection into plastic bags.

Enticing drinks were hard to resist at 10 to 25 yuan. One of the special drinks, Jianghong tea, was impressively tasty. The tea, which mingles red and ginger teas with brown sugar in the same teapot, was served piping hot. As the waitress promised, it warmed the body at once.

Within the restaurant, the atmosphere was casual and comfortable. The big wooden tables are excellent for family-and-friends get-togethers and the gentle lighting provides a soft glow. It's a nice contrast to the muddy roads and water-potholes, common with any seafood market, outside. But for seafood enthusiasts, the high-quality seafood costs little and without doubt outweighs the imperfect environment outdoors.