Legendary Crab Omelet, Dry Tom Yum

Raan Jay Fai - Legendary 80 year old dishing out legendary crab omelets

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Raan Jay Fai · 327 Maha Chai Rd, Samran Rat, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok 10200, Thailand

★★★★☆ · Thai restaurant

What to Order: Crab Omelet, Dry Tom Yum

Rates: 1500 THB per person (Cash Only)

This is one for the bucketlist.

Ever since I saw her on the Netflix episode of Street Food Asia, I wanted to eat whatever she made. Her Michelin star didnt matter. She was a badass woman so passionate about her work, I just wanted to watch her cook and feel the energy and be lucky enough to taste her passion through whatever it is on the plate. Even if its an omelet I was lining up for.

The place opens at 10am and I knew there were legendary lines to get a table. But I was naïve enough to think no one would come so early for lunch, so I dilly dallied and reached at 10.30 and boy was I in for a rude shock. I was queue no. 43. And its off season!

It took me a good 2 hours to get from there to actually have a plate of food in front of me. But I was mentally prepared and my morning was free just for this very important experience.

From my time standing outside the humble looking place with roughly 10-12 tables (which by my rough calculations made INR 1.3 cr turnover per month), I got to witness not just THE boss lady in action, but also all the other women working there with just tireless precision and drive, non stop. The young lady manager in particular just fascinated me.

She was incharge of everything including the waitlist, taking orders, running the pass, being the cashier, managing wait staff, and just bloody handling roughly 700 people a day (my off season estimates)! And mind you, these 700 people were mostly tourists - clueless, impatient, tired, hungry, waiting in the heat / rain for roughly 1.5hrs. Naturally, the manager is stern about her system. This meticulous system consisted of different colored pens, drawers, lists, paper clips, cello tape, piles of chits, plastic pouches, a whiteboard - and NOT a computer. Everything including your bill is neatly handwritten by her in Thai. The operations nerd in me was fangirling over her more than Jay Fai. She was a star - yet was silent and invisible.

Jay Fai on the other hand looked at no one, spoke to no one. She was cooking out in the open yet seemed like she was in her own lab between 4 walls. In her classic cargo tshirt, black apron and snorkeling goggles, she stood over an array of woks and pots, with a bellowing fire under all of them. She was completely focused on each one of those fires, non stop. Each dish is cooked by her, and that why the wait is so long. That means this 80 year old lady single handedly feeds 700 people a day.

Once in a while, a VIP party turns up, and gets to go meet Jay Fai personally. That's the only time I saw her look up from her pots. They are treated with no special attention, other than maybe a lower welcome bow and rushed orders.

As for the food, I was alone and discouraged from ordering more than 1 item by 'silent star' while taking my order. The crab omelet itself would be too much, she said, so I obeyed. And of course she was right. The fluffy omelet was stuffed to the seams with succulent crab meat and then deep fried in egg batter. It was delicious. The chilli sauce paired great with it to cut the richness of the omelet. After waiting in line for so long, I quickly gulped it all down with a Chrysanthemum ice tea. I was an afternoon to remember.