Raan Jay Fai ร้านเจ๊ไฟ, Bangkok

During our short lil 45 minutes transit at Suvarnabhumi Airport from Hokkaido, both JS and Monkey skipped the airlines meal, saved the stomach for some yummy slurpy spicy noodles at the airport. While enjoying our hearty bowls of broth, both of us stared at each other....giggled at our greediness for dashing from gate to the restaurants then back to the new boarding gate just for some authentic Thai food. JS had to raise the subject...."We must go to Thailand soon."

Monkey leaped at this green light opportunity and arranged for it in less than 24 hours. Flights and accommodation were booked, sooo efficient especially when it comes to holiday. Hahahaha. Actually...*ahem* I'm alwiz that efficient...kekekeke....*cough cough*
The pic above is the famous Phra Prom or known as Erawan Shrine. One must not miss visiting the shrine whenever in Bangkok. Our hotel is just located next to it - Hyatt Erawan. Just a great location, everything within walking distance.

JS loves this shrine so much that he will give up his sleep, wakes up early in the morning for some street photography around the shrine. For some outstanding-photography-exhibition-quality-pictures taken by JS last year *click here to read*

Look at the restaurant's signboard on top. We almost walked past this place!!! so understated.

Our mission this trip is.......FOOD!!!!! hahahahaha so it's gonna be a lot of posting on food in the next few days. Peakie D and Globe Trotter Wei highly recommended this lil hole in the wall by a rather hip hop name - Raan Jay Fai. When they mentioned it a few weeks ago, I thought it's some hip modern contemporary new hangout place in the hustling bustling city of Bangkok.

Since JS could read speak and write Thai, I got him to translate Raan Jay Fai
Raan = Shop
Jay = Sister as in "jie jie", so it's a borrowed word from the chinese language and more commonly spoken rather than written.
Fai = Mole or birthmark

soooo I guess it's Mole Sister Shop? hahahahahahaha

We sat outside to enjoy the view of tuk-tuks buzzing through, the enormous long queue 2 doors away for the holy grail of Pad Thai *I will blog bout this soon* and of coz it's more "romantic" to dine al-fresco.

Just kidding......both JS and Monkey are not the cuddly romantic types. To us romance  = great food!!!! hahahahaha for JS, romance = preparing awesome food to feed Monkey and to Monkey = baking his favourite cookies, chiffon cakes and madeleines. I guess our love for food is so strong, everything has to revolves around it.

Singha Beer to quench our thirst.

"Neng Beer Sing!!"
yes one must survive and at least learn the local language to order food. Beers are so cheap here in Bangkok, including imported ones. We went to a hangout joint later and they practically have all kinds of beer from around the world!!!! I wished I have more space in my stomach to do a beer degustation.

I was searching hard for her mole....think I saw it hehehehe. Not only one mole, she has got a few!!! This lady is indeed awesome, she's been cooking since she was young and is still cooking now. She's almost 70 and this place has been operating for more than 50+ years!!!!

Watching her cooked just mesmerised us. The way she skilfully handle her woks, lifting them effortlessly, tossing her ingredients around and dishing them out. By the way those are charcoal fire. From time to time she had to step out to hack more charcoal and feed her burner. The electrical fan at the back is not to cool her body down, but more to increase the intensity of the charcoal fire.

a huge pot of stock was perpetually boiling, also by charcoal fire.

While waiting for our food, we were bz doing people-watch and spotted the other must try restaurant 2 doors away. The queue is perpetually long with locals and tourists alike. At least it's a moving queue and the service was pretty efficient and quick.

The famous Holy Grail of Pad Thai - Thipsamai...again...charcoal fire. Gosh!!!! This is a charcoal street!! or charcoal must be too cheap here in Thailand. This place will be the subject of another posting, so let's now focus back to Raan Jay Fai our dearie 70 year old Mole Sista!!!

I'm so sorry I HAD to order this!!!! When I saw it on the menu....it was like Hallelujah~~~~ Comfort food!!!!! Jok Haeng = Dry Porridge is in fact a fried porridge. It's very different from the one we had in Malaysia. This one has got cleaner ingredients, instead of everything in with the dark soya sauce.

Jok Haeng is just porridge fried in her famous stock with seafood, garlic and shallots. Served with some crispies and a par boiled egg. The prawns were enormous and there's 3 huge one in this tiny bowl!!!

When it arrived on the table, Monkey had her nose glued to it. Ooooooo the smell of smoke and charcoal was infused in this bowl of porridge. It was so so so so tasty!!! Goodness me~~~it's a poor man's food but trust me, the dimensional and palate isn't. Only a skilled chef could master this.

a saucer of crispies to add texture to the porridge.


Sen Yai Pad Kee Mao Talay = Fried Flat Noodles with Seafood and wine. Or famously known as the Drunken Noodles. Where's the noodles?!?!?!?! I want my noodles!!!!

The flat noddles were silky smooth, thin and yet with some bite innit. All the vegetables and seafood has got a good char on the outside. This dish also smelled of smoke aka "wok hei" One of the best wok hei in my life. Did she actually throw in some charcoal dust onto every dish to create this profile?? hmmmm. So so so so good~~~~

The other must try and signature of Raan Jay Fai is Kai Jeow Poo = Crab meat omelette

Yes it's an omelette, not pohpiah. Could u just zoom in at the crispy edges??? Do u wanna imagine its fragrant egginess that triggers your salive glands?

Now focus on the chunky meat.....yes chunks and chunks and CHUNKS and chunks and chunks of crab meat. This is definitely the best way to eat a crab without having to peel them....and mind you this omelette consisted of 2 CRABS!!!!!! TWO!!! TWOOOOOOO!!!!!

oh LORD~~~~~~
OH MY FREAKING GAWD
How could an omelette be this good???????

Expect to pay about 800THB for this omelette. That's about RM 80. Hello u are getting 2 crabs!!! peeled crabs encased in this crispy egginess that was fried to perfection in animal fats.

After these few dishes, Monkey gave up.....don't think I can do the holy grail next door. Coz I wanna save some space for street food later instead of loading more carbo into my body. So JS said Okie let's come back tomorrow for Holy Grail Pad Thai.

Do come here off-peak hours else there would be a queue. Also be prepare to wait a bit, it wasn't that long in my opinion coz I have waited longer for food elsewhere before. Since every dish has to be cooked individually over charcoal fire, you just gotta have some patience.


then we hailed our Tuk-Tuk to get back to the heart of Bangkok. Tuk-Tuk is alwiz a scary ride, just don't look forward....concentrate on the views next to you. I may have a heart attack if I just focus on the way he drives or how he overtook dangerously. So just look to the left or right and believe me you, this is the fastest ride in Bangkok. Via taxi = 40 minutes, via Tuk-tuk 10 minutes, u choose.

Selfie taken by JS with Canon 5D MK 3. We definitely can't use any selfie pod because it's impossible to support the weight of this gigantic camera. Hahahaha. I do have a selfie pod from Cat but have yet to use it....hahahaha maybe it's time to bring it out to play!!! Okie I will take it out for my next holiday next week :D:D:D:D

Raan Jay Fai
327 Thanon Mahachai,
Bangkok, Thailand.
Tel: +66 2 223 9384
*just tell the cabbie or the Tuks u wanna go to the famous Pad Thai Thipsamai instead. Raan Jay Fai is just 2 doors away*