For most restaurants and chefs, copping a Michelin Star is something to strive towards. It means your grub is bloody good gear, and sets your restaurant a grade above the others.
Michelin (yeah, the folks that do tires for your car and have a mascot that looks like he’s made out of marshmallow) have released their first-ever guide to Bangkok, an interesting move from a group that typically focus on European food spots for their annual guide.
The 2018 guide was announced last month and it pipped Raan Jay Fai in Bangkok’s Old Town district for its excellent dishes – the only street vendor in Bangkok, and the third in the world, to be awarded a Michelin star.
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Since the announcement of the street food spot getting the gong, people have been lining up for hours to get a spot at a table in the small eatery that would normally go unnoticed.
Jai Fai told Eater that she wishes she could “give that star back already”, as people wait up to five hours for her famed drunken noodles and ‘khai jeaw poo’ (crab omelette) – because Jai Fai, who is in her seventies, is the only person that cooks the foodhouse’s dishes.
She’s also told media that she’s not passing on her secret recipes to her daughters, so there’s only so long that the food will taste the way Jai Fai cooks it.
