JAY FAI THAI FOOD STAR
Allison Foat headed to Bangkok to meet the ’Mozart of the noodle pan’, the street cook who has just been listed in the city’s inaugural Michelin Guide
AD327 Samran Rat Intersection, Phra Nakhon, Krung Thep jayfaibangkok@gmail.com @jayfaibangkok on Instagram
Jay Fai has always pulled a crowd. Her eponymous shophouse on Maha Chai Road in Bangkok took pavement Pad Thai to new heights when she opened it 40 years ago and being listed in the city’s inaugural Michelin Guide book has brought a new wave of fans and demand is off the charts. The diminutive cook is only the third street-food chef in Southeast Asia to win a Michelin star, and when told about it she’d not heard of the guide and had to be persuaded to attend the ceremony. The other two stalls — Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle, and Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle in Singapore — each won theirs when the first Singapore Michelin Guide was published last year.
Jay Fai cooks solo and plays her recipe cards close to her chest. The long queues and constant stream of foodies, journalists, bloggers and critics has her on her feet 8-10 hours a day, six days a week, and the restaurant’s popularity shows no sign of abating. “Now that we’ve been singled out and interviewed they’re coming at us,” she told the Bangkok Post last year, “Oh, I wish I could give the star back already.” Miffed she may be but there are perks, like charging 300-1 000 Baht (R115-R385) for dishes that would cost 50-100 Baht at other sidewalk eateries, so hopefully that is a consolation.
There are a few signature dishes on the two-page menu at Jay Fai, like the drunken noodles and the giant crab omelette, a favourite, most requested dish, earning her the nickname “the omelette queen”. Looking more like a plump enchilada and served on a plastic plate atop a paper napkin, the dish is not the most photogenic you’ll see, but judge not because enthusiasts wax lyrical as they break into the eggy folds and relish the sweet meat within. The guay-tiew-phad-see-ew talay, made with stirfried rice noodles, egg, sweet soya sauce, mixed vegetables and enormous succulent prawns, was my favourite though, a heap of deliciousness and dense with flavour and distinct Thai aromas.
Jay Fai, whose formal name is Supinya Junsuta, was born in 1945 to Chinese immigrant parents. She opened a restaurant in the ’80s in the Phra Nakhon District.
As a rookie cook in her mid-30s, Jay Fai kept to basics like congee (porridge) and mostly referenced her mother’s recipes, but as her confidence grew she experimented more, upped the diversity and expanded the offering to include wok-cooked seafood dishes that have since become her forte. She has been fastidious about quality and is said to travel the length and breadth of Bangkok daily to procure the freshest ingredients. Her reputation dates to 1999 when a reviewer hailed her as “one of those increasingly rare Mozart’s of the noodle pan who can transform very ordinary, lunchtime-at-themarket dishes into masterpieces of local cuisine”, and celebrity Martha Stewart once rated her the best cook in Thailand.
At Jay Fai she herself is the main attraction as she gets down to business in full view of a diverse clientele, many of whom gather around to film and photograph her as she flamboyantly lifts and swirls the pans before ladling the steaming contents into rows of waiting bowls.
The day I met her she was impeccably groomed right down to rouge and ruby red lipstick and eccentrically dressed in a camo T-shirt, mauve wellies, a woollen beanie and, the much Instagrammed “Despicable Me” goggles that are both cool and practical. I instantly loved her and when next in the city I’ll be back in a flash.