Her life changed with the Michelin Star she received at the age of 72: Who is Chef Jay Fai?

Our impressions: When we arrived at Jay Fai's modest restaurant in Rattanakosin, one of Bangkok's most historic districts, we expected to find a chef ecstatic with her award. The plan was to write a feel-good story about one of the world's most unlikely Michelin-starred chefs, a tiny old woman who cooks in a primitive kitchen adjacent to a dirty passageway. Instead of being energetic and excited, on the contrary, we were greeted by someone who looked very tired and stressed. When we asked her how she felt about being one of the 17 Michelin-starred chefs in Thailand, Jay Fai began a nerve-wracking tirade about the negative effects of the award. Our translator could not even get a word from her mouth indirectly. Whenever we wanted to ask questions, she continued to express her anger.

Jay Fai (also known as Raan Jay Fai[b] 'Jay Fai's shop') is a street-side restaurant in Bangkok and a nickname of its eponymous owner, whose real name is Supinya Junsuta. The restaurant mainly serves wok-cooked seafood dishes, and is highly popular among food enthusiasts despite its high prices. It received one star in the inaugural Bangkok 2018 Michelin Guide.

We were surprised and saddened by Jay Fai's worried demeanor because we had dined at her restaurant a few times before she earned her Michelin star, and she seemed like a completely different person back then. At that time, her restaurant was not as busy as it is now, and she often joked with customers while preparing her famous dishes such as crab omelet and cranberry noodles. But now, the relaxed and calm atmosphere of the restaurant was gone. Instead, there was a noisy, heavy-air restaurant, a crowd of people hoping to find a table outside, and many visitors trying to take pictures around Jay Fai.

While Jay Fai was cooking ecstatically, her staff often turned customers away due to the crowd and advised that they need to book in advance to find a place next. According to Jay Fai, many customers are not interested in eating, most of them come to watch the show. Jay Fai, is afraid that her neighbors in this quiet district of Bangkok will be disturbed by this chaos; “A few people taking pictures is okay, but there are too many people here with cameras trying to get into the restaurant, it's too messy and noisy for other people living in the area, which is not good at all,” she says.

Who is Jay Fai?

Jay Fai was born in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. She is the child of a Chinese immigrant family but mostly grew up with a single parent because her father was an opium addict. She grew up in a bad neighborhood set up behind the market. One of the reasons she is behind the market is because her mother is selling rice porridge and noodles at the market. With all these financial difficulties, Jay Fai started working as a tailor to support her family.

The spark of the cookery story was thrown by a fire; Her life as a tailor ended with that fire. The fire that broke out destroyed all the materials. At this time, Jay Fai was still in her 20s. Not knowing what to do due to her age gave her a hard time.

Unable to repurchase her materials due to a lack of resources, Jay Fai found the solution by helping her mother in the market and watching her do everything. On a day when there were a lot of customers, she wanted to take over the business, reproaching her mother for her slowness, but her mother told her that she could not do it. At this point, Jay Fai's friendship with the wok pan began.

She hasn't left the kitchen for days. She tried it many times and tasted every dish she made. While she was working so hard, one day she forgot the oil in the pan. She drained the burning oil and started to cook noodles in a pan without oil. She continued to cook without stopping. Do you know what happened in the end? It turned out to be a very tasty and aromatic dish. The next day, she inherited the wok pan from her mother, who told her you can't do it, and that's how her friendship with her customers began.

Jay Fai, who said "I started to see my way" when she first picked up the pan as a street vendor, said that she loved doing what she was doing, but the difficulties of being a street vendor did not let up. Our brave cook in her 30s put all her responsibilities in her pocket and shouldered the consequences of her decisions. For example, she bought the best quality materials, and opened her place in a better place. After doing all this, when the customer came, she demanded justice for the quality work she did and specifically stated, "Don't compare my shrimps with others, mine are different".

While all this was going on, Jay Fai did not give up trying and set out for new things. She learned about the Chinese omelet, experimented on her own, tasted it at the end of the day, and said, “I did it!” She lived her moment and found the 'Crab Meat Omelette'. By 2018, she became the first street food artist to be awarded a Michelin star.

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https://guide.michelin.com/en/bangkok-region/bangkok/restaurant/jay-fai