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My restaurant's quite small.
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And I still cook outside.
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However, no one comes to Jay Fai's place
for the ambiance.
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They come here for the taste.
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They come because the food is delicious.
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When people think of Bangkok,
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they may think of a hot, steamy city,
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full of tuktuks, and endless traffic.
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But above all,
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they think of street food.
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Street food is one of the most important
aspects of life in Bangkok.
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Street food is something
that people can talk over, discuss.
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"This is my favorite place."
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"Oh, you're crazy.
That's my favorite place."
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Everyone can join in.
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Always like a feeling,
like there's a party going on.
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It's a kind of unifier.
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One of the most democratic parts
of Thai life.
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And then a time when class lines
are getting more widened,
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and everyone's on their phone,
and kind of in their own world already.
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Street food is like
one of the few things left
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that glues people together.
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They want noodles on the way home,
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or, like, take away curry.
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But a couple of years ago,
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the government decreed
that street food would be restricted.
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They said the vendors were encroaching
on taxpayer's space,
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and called the vendors "leeches."
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But the vendors are there
because the people want them there.
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So, it's funny that, at the same time,
that government is trying to say,
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"Vendors are just these parasites
on society."
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There's somebody like Jay Fai.
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Jay Fai is probably the most famous
street food chef in the world.
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And she has long been
the Queen of Street Food
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on the Thai scene.
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She takes these common street food dishes,
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and elevates them into something
that they weren't before.
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People line up to try her tom yum,
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drunken noodles,
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and, especially, crab omelette.
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In fact, she's known as
"The Omelette Lady" among some people.
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She's a 73-year-old woman
who manages to grind it out
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day after day.
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People are not doing her a favor
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by allowing her to take up the sidewalk.
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She is doing people a favor
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by cooking for them.
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Even as a kid,
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I wake up thinking about work.
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I'd do it every day if I could.
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Every day, I wake up
at 10:30 in the morning.
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My staff arrives around noon to help.
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I'm old, but I always remind them.
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"You may be younger, but I am stronger."
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By 2:30 in the afternoon,
I start preparing myself.
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When I walk into my station,
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I have to be focused.
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I am meticulous
about every dish that I serve.
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Everything must be flawless.
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No matter how tired I am,
no matter what's going on,
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I cook every dish myself.
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I want it to be the best,
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because I'm not just a street cook...
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I'm a chef.
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Bangkok is,
sort of, at the crossroads.
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It's poised
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to become more modern.
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So, the city
is trying to clear the sidewalks.
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Street food vendors
in a lot of neighborhoods
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are getting told to move elsewhere.
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This is, kind of,
rupturing an ecosystem
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that has been in place for decades.
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My older brother
was the first one to open a noodle stall
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on Sukhumvit 38 Road.
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Back then, over 30 years ago,
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the place was surrounded by bars.
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After the partygoers were finished
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very late at night,
they would come to eat.
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We would sell until 4 or 5 in the morning.
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Last year,
the landlord suddenly shut us down.
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Most of our fellow vendors quit
and moved back to their hometowns.
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But our customers kept calling.
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"Hello, hello? Where are you?
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Will you start selling again?"
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My brother suggested reopening the stall
near my house, so it'd be convenient.
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Our customers missed us so much
that they took taxis just to see us.
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Noodles cost 60 baht,
while a taxi fare costs over 300 baht!
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They were so happy
to come out here and eat.
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We were so happy to see them.
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They used to serve
egg noodles with crab claw,
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but the new clientele
can't afford the crab.
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Now, it is deep-fried and barbecued pork.
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And the egg noodles
were silky and buttery,
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with wontons and greens,
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and it's still delicious.
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They would be considered the lucky ones.
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Their customers overcame
every possible obstacle
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to get them to cook for them again.
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I grew up in a slum.
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In a bad neighborhood behind a market.
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Mom sold rice porridge
and chicken noodles at the market.
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She had to sell a lot of it.
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My dad was an opium addict.
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Sometimes he ran away.
We didn't know where he was.
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So I became a seamstress.
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I cut fabric all day, rolled them up,
and sewed dresses all night.
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I made sure we had food on the table.
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I spent ten years as a seamstress.
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Time flew by when I did this sort of work.
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I was content.
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However, one day,
I was sewing and cutting...
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Boom! A stairway near me collapsed.
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Fire erupted.
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Everyone shouted, "Run!"
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I ran outside, looked back
and everything was gone.
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I had nothing left.
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After everything burned down,
all I had were the pajamas on my back.
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My sewing machine and
my tools were all gone.
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I was in my twenties.
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I didn't know what to do.
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After that, I started watching
my mom sell noodles across the market.
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I helped her out back then.
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One day, I noticed how slowly she cooked
with my sister.
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There were only four or five customers
standing there, waiting for their food.
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I was frustrated.
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I told her I wanted to cook.
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She told me I couldn't do it.
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"Okay, you don't think I can do this?"
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That night, I grabbed the wok,
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I started stir-frying noodles.
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I practiced by myself every night,
ate that food every night.
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At one point, I poured oil into a wok
and forgot about it.
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When I saw the oil burning,
I dumped it all out.
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I got so mad,
I threw noodles into the pan,
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and stirred them furiously.
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The heat alone browned them nicely.
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I didn't need any oil.
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They had a wonderful taste and aroma.
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The next day,
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I asked Mom for her wok.
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She let me have it.
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It was all up to me.
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When I started to cook,
the customers saw I had talent.
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Right then, I began to see my path.
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- Are these my rice noodles?
- Yes.
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Weigh them again.
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I need one kilo. This is nearly two.
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These mushrooms are quite small.
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Just cut them into two pieces, not three.
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I love every dish that I cook.
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I have no preference or prejudice.
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You have to love them
to cook them properly,
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down to every little detail.
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Especially, tom yum.
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The stock must be rich and tasty,
that's very important.
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You start with lots of bones
to make the broth.
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And you just keep adding bones,
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bird's eye chilies, fish sauce,
and lime juice.
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Do you know how delicious it is?
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- Yes.
- Can you recommend another dish?
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What about drunken noodles or tom yum?
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All right.
Let's have tom yum, then.
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Tom yum is this wonderful mix
of fresh herbs and natural acidity,
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I feel like
you haven't really had Thai food
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until you've had tom yum
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because that's
the quintessential Thai dish.
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It's spicy, it's salty, it's tart.
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And Jay Fai's tom yum
is one of the best in Thailand.
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It's got fist-sized prawns,
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juicy cuttlefish,
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and it's pretty amazing.
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But what makes it quite different
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is that she doesn't just make
great tom yum soup,
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she goes even further.
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Jay Fai came out with dry tom yum,
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which is basically the tom yum
without the broth,
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but with all the aromatics
infused with the tom yum flavor.
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The first time I had it was the first time
I went to Jay Fai and it blew my mind.
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It had never been done before.
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She takes food that you find
on every street corner
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and she makes it
into something really unique.
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Selling street food
is not that complicated.
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They're just out there
cooking late into the night.
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Just like me when I didn't have
a permanent shophouse.
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By the time I was in my 30s,
I was responsible for my whole family.
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I was right on the street.
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Chicken noodles, that's all I sold.
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We cooked a lot.
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Sometimes I cooked until 4:00 or 5:00 a.m.
and went to bed at dawn.
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Life was very hard.
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I had to put all my tables out
on the sidewalk.
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Sometimes, the authorities
would chase us off.
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On nights when it rained
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or when didn't let us put out tables,
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we were doomed.
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00:16:04,505 --> 00:16:09,385
I was trying hard to make money,
but I was facing a dead end.
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I realized I had to do something.
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00:16:20,270 --> 00:16:21,855
So, I took a risk.
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00:16:25,192 --> 00:16:26,819
I borrowed some money,
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00:16:28,612 --> 00:16:30,280
and bought some prawns.
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Very fresh tiger prawns.
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I set the price at 120 baht.
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One guy said, "Oh, it's just pad thai."
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00:16:41,625 --> 00:16:43,544
I told him, "The prawns
are totally different."
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00:16:44,294 --> 00:16:48,173
Don't compare them to anyone else's.
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00:16:50,926 --> 00:16:52,761
He ate them once.
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00:16:52,845 --> 00:16:56,724
And when he kept coming back,
he never ordered chicken again.
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I knew the dish was a success.
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00:17:03,313 --> 00:17:07,651
I started to look into expensive things
like seafood.
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00:17:09,028 --> 00:17:11,905
Higher quality ingredients
meant higher prices.
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00:17:13,574 --> 00:17:16,660
That's how I got the money
to rent my shophouse.
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00:17:17,411 --> 00:17:18,412
That's it.
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00:17:28,172 --> 00:17:30,674
In Bangkok, curry is essential.
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00:17:31,258 --> 00:17:32,259
It's a staple.
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00:17:33,093 --> 00:17:37,347
It's something
that everybody has their own recipe for.
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00:17:40,726 --> 00:17:42,566
Out on the street,
everyone's eating it.
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00:17:42,978 --> 00:17:44,855
And it's like the perfect comfort food.
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00:17:46,065 --> 00:17:47,608
No matter where we go,
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00:17:47,983 --> 00:17:49,276
the journey begins with curry.
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00:18:02,873 --> 00:18:04,917
Jek Pui was my father.
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00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:11,340
He learned how to make curry
when he came here from China.
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00:18:12,382 --> 00:18:14,218
After my father learned how to cook curry,
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00:18:14,343 --> 00:18:17,638
his relatives told him to bring his family
to Thailand and start a new life.
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00:18:18,639 --> 00:18:21,100
We've been here for over 70 years.
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00:18:22,601 --> 00:18:24,436
He worked hard developing his recipe.
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00:18:25,354 --> 00:18:28,190
Sometimes he got it right,
sometimes wrong,
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00:18:28,899 --> 00:18:31,026
At 13, I started helping him out.
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00:18:34,113 --> 00:18:38,534
My father only sold pork and beef curries.
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00:18:40,661 --> 00:18:42,788
I created our other dishes myself.
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We've added green curry
with meatballs or chicken,
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00:18:50,129 --> 00:18:51,672
and pork Panang.
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00:18:53,298 --> 00:18:56,677
If customers loved them,
that meant the recipes were right.
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00:18:58,178 --> 00:19:02,391
Jek Pui makes
a really comforting, mild curry.
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00:19:02,558 --> 00:19:05,310
It has garlic, shallots, chili.
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00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:10,232
Very few people make it
from scratch anymore
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00:19:10,315 --> 00:19:12,317
because it is labor intensive.
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That cart, it's a really important part
of the community.
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00:19:25,581 --> 00:19:29,626
There's usually a line of people
sitting on red stools,
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00:19:29,710 --> 00:19:32,546
with these bowls of rice and curry
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00:19:32,629 --> 00:19:35,549
perched precariously on their lap.
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00:19:37,176 --> 00:19:39,469
For everyone
who lives in the neighborhood,
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00:19:39,845 --> 00:19:41,847
Jek Pui makes people think of childhood.
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00:19:44,975 --> 00:19:47,269
Everyone loves that curry on the corner.
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00:20:05,579 --> 00:20:07,699
Back when I moved
into my restaurant...
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00:20:08,624 --> 00:20:12,336
I still called myself a street cook.
246
00:20:13,629 --> 00:20:14,949
I opened my shop in the evenings.
247
00:20:17,758 --> 00:20:21,970
My customers came from bars
and gambling joints.
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00:20:23,347 --> 00:20:25,474
The ones who really loved to eat
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00:20:25,557 --> 00:20:27,643
would gather around to watch me cook.
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00:20:31,063 --> 00:20:32,648
I saw an opportunity.
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00:20:33,607 --> 00:20:36,860
Anyone could stir-fry pad thai,
252
00:20:40,572 --> 00:20:42,449
I wanted to do something great.
253
00:20:44,409 --> 00:20:46,119
I’d like to cook crab omelettes,
254
00:20:46,954 --> 00:20:53,043
but with that dish,
I wanted to make something different, too.
255
00:20:54,670 --> 00:20:58,340
So, I taught myself
to make Japanese omelettes.
256
00:20:59,925 --> 00:21:02,886
I added a lot of crabs, nearly a pound.
257
00:21:05,264 --> 00:21:08,600
I flattened and rolled them.
258
00:21:10,352 --> 00:21:12,437
When I took my first bite, oh!
259
00:21:14,064 --> 00:21:17,317
Oh, it was so beautiful. I'd done it.
260
00:21:18,068 --> 00:21:21,613
Now, I had something special to sell.
261
00:21:25,492 --> 00:21:29,329
The people are surprised by
how important omelettes are to Thai food,
262
00:21:29,413 --> 00:21:30,747
but it's a staple dish.
263
00:21:31,832 --> 00:21:35,669
Jay Fai makes it into something that is
264
00:21:35,752 --> 00:21:38,839
fantastic and expensive.
265
00:21:39,131 --> 00:21:43,510
With technique,
the woks are volcanically hot.
266
00:21:44,678 --> 00:21:47,222
So, if the omelettes are really light,
267
00:21:48,015 --> 00:21:50,309
stuffed, full to bursting
268
00:21:50,434 --> 00:21:52,311
with chunks of crab meat.
269
00:21:53,729 --> 00:21:56,481
People started to talk
about my food. They're coming by.
270
00:21:56,565 --> 00:22:00,652
The gambling houses started calling
in lots of orders, dozens at once.
271
00:22:01,695 --> 00:22:04,114
We're serving so many omelettes,
272
00:22:05,032 --> 00:22:08,744
sometimes we ran out of eggs.
273
00:22:21,131 --> 00:22:23,091
Is Khun Da here?
274
00:22:23,383 --> 00:22:24,760
Please come in.
275
00:22:26,553 --> 00:22:31,058
From that point on,
I started to build a whole new menu.
276
00:22:37,105 --> 00:22:39,524
New dishes just came to me.
277
00:22:42,444 --> 00:22:44,529
Big shots and politicians
started to turn up.
278
00:22:45,947 --> 00:22:47,324
They would ask for special things.
279
00:22:51,203 --> 00:22:53,497
There are definitely
over a hundred dishes.
280
00:22:53,580 --> 00:22:55,582
We have a lot on the menu.
281
00:23:01,088 --> 00:23:04,549
I'm proud of my boldness
and I never regretted it.
282
00:23:27,948 --> 00:23:29,950
At some point,
she became known
283
00:23:30,033 --> 00:23:32,411
as the best street food cook in the city.
284
00:23:34,830 --> 00:23:39,459
She created destination food
from common dishes.
285
00:24:06,445 --> 00:24:09,906
For 40 years,
I worked almost every day.
286
00:24:12,742 --> 00:24:14,494
And then, one day, I got a call.
287
00:24:16,246 --> 00:24:18,206
Somebody was hosting a gala dinner.
288
00:24:19,332 --> 00:24:21,293
I don't like to close my restaurant
for anything.
289
00:24:21,877 --> 00:24:23,795
But I took the day off for the party.
290
00:24:27,132 --> 00:24:30,302
All of a sudden, my daughter said,
"Mom, they called your name."
291
00:24:32,304 --> 00:24:33,744
I won the award.
292
00:24:34,222 --> 00:24:36,141
The Michelin star.
293
00:24:37,642 --> 00:24:39,978
Right then,
it seemed like I couldn't breathe.
294
00:24:42,189 --> 00:24:45,400
I was happy. The happiest.
295
00:24:47,402 --> 00:24:48,445
The next day,
296
00:24:49,196 --> 00:24:51,239
there was a big crowd
in front of my restaurant.
297
00:24:53,533 --> 00:24:56,661
Everyone wanted to take my picture.
298
00:25:02,709 --> 00:25:04,252
People had to start reserving tables.
299
00:25:06,421 --> 00:25:09,758
My daughter quit her job
to help me manage it all.
300
00:25:14,346 --> 00:25:15,531
She didn't need the star.
301
00:25:15,555 --> 00:25:16,932
She knew herself
302
00:25:17,265 --> 00:25:19,184
that her food was the best.
303
00:25:20,352 --> 00:25:22,896
The Michelin Star
showed the rest of the world
304
00:25:23,271 --> 00:25:25,357
what a great, wonderful chef she was.
305
00:25:28,652 --> 00:25:32,489
When chefs started coming
to my shop to eat, they called me "Chef."
306
00:25:36,576 --> 00:25:38,537
Wow, I am a chef. Me?
307
00:25:41,122 --> 00:25:43,542
I can't describe how proud I was.
308
00:25:46,628 --> 00:25:49,381
Jay Fai represents a possible outcome
309
00:25:49,464 --> 00:25:50,632
for some street food vendors.
310
00:25:51,091 --> 00:25:52,342
If you're good enough,
311
00:25:52,467 --> 00:25:55,929
you can bring people to your place,
on your terms.
312
00:25:57,847 --> 00:25:58,765
That success
313
00:25:58,848 --> 00:26:03,937
surprised the government
because they continuously underplay
314
00:26:04,020 --> 00:26:05,480
how important street food is.
315
00:26:05,564 --> 00:26:07,357
Not just to Thai people,
316
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,234
but in Thailand's image.
317
00:26:12,529 --> 00:26:14,322
Street food is for everyone.
318
00:26:15,740 --> 00:26:17,951
Something purely Thai,
319
00:26:18,326 --> 00:26:20,787
purely Bangkok, and purely our own.
320
00:26:32,173 --> 00:26:34,092
Put the bigger chunks in here.
321
00:26:34,175 --> 00:26:35,885
Don't torture the customers.
322
00:26:43,893 --> 00:26:46,104
I've been cooking for a long time.
323
00:26:50,108 --> 00:26:52,193
Whenever anyone asks, I say I'm not tired.
324
00:26:56,990 --> 00:26:58,617
I know my strength.
325
00:27:01,578 --> 00:27:07,709
I have faith in charcoal fires
and iron woks.
326
00:27:13,131 --> 00:27:14,507
They taught me to be clever.
327
00:27:18,595 --> 00:27:19,929
They taught me to be brave.
328
00:27:23,516 --> 00:27:25,810
So, if I still have the strength,
I will continue cooking.
329
00:27:31,441 --> 00:27:32,859
This is me.
330
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:29,642
Subtitle translation by
Chanamporn Ngoensrisit