The only Thai street-food eatery to have won a Michelin Star, Jay Fai, will soon have an opportunity to cook up some dishes for Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha.

“The Michelin Guide team will arrange the occasion,” Jay Fai owner and chef Supinya Junsuta said yesterday, one day after she picked up the Michelin-star certification.

She plans to serve Prayut her famous dishes such as a crabmeat omelette and dried congee. “I’ve heard the prime minister loves Thai food,” Supinya said.

The 72-year-old woman said that if she got the opportunity to speak to Prayut she would tell him to take good care of fishermen and to ensure police are not too strict with people who are trying to earn a living.

“It’s difficult for sellers to not raise their prices, if their cost increases,” Supinya said.

She said that several high-profile figures were already among her customers, including HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.

“I was working in front of my stove one day and suddenly the Princess turned up. I cooked stir-fried noodles for her,” Supinya said. Her simple restaurant serves delicious food although the price tags are way more expensive than normal street food.

A crabmeat-omelette dish, for example, starts at Bt800 (S$33) and the most expensive item, abalone noodles in gravy, is Bt20,000 (S$828). “I have set reasonable prices. My ingredients are premium quality and very fresh,” Supinya said.

Her restaurant is known as “Jay Fai” because Supinya has a noticeable mole on her neck. Fai means mole in Thai.

Supinya said she inherited the food shop from her parents, who started serving stir-fried noodles more than seven decades ago.

“I started helping my parents following the closure of the factory I worked for,” she said.

After working for some time at the restaurant, she started diversifying the menu by creating new dishes.

Supinya said she believed that aside from quality ingredients, charcoal-based cooking is the key to her successful business.

There is a constant flow of customers despite the restaurant’s relatively high prices, compared with other street-food eateries.

A 41-year-old customer at Jay Fai yesterday said he started frequenting the restaurant 25 years ago. “I was just a school student when I heard this place served really yummy food,” he said.

He believed most people would forget the relatively high price after tasting the food. “I can tell you that the taste is exactly the same every time, so whenever you come back, you are not disappointed,” he said.

He believed the prices set by Supinya were reasonable because the ingredients were of such high quality.

Phirada Cheepsattayakorn, 29, said when she first went to Jay Fai, she found the prices shockingly high. “But after the food arrived, I thought it was money well-spent,” she said.

She said she used to visit with her boyfriend and now that it has won a Michelin star, she hoped to soon take her parents too.

TOKYO – Two people, including a female priest, were killed and two others were wounded Thursday night in a knife attack at a Tokyo shrine, police and news reports said.

A man and a woman in their 50s were confirmed dead in hospital after they were found bleeding at the Tomioka Hachimangu Shinto shrine, a police spokesman said.

Further details, including their identity and information about a suspect, were not available, the spokesman said, adding: “No one has been arrested. The case is still under investigation.”

According to local media, police found a survival knife and a Japanese sword with blood on them near the attack site.

One of the victims was the female chief priest of the shrine, located in a bustling area of the capital, Kyodo News said.

It is believed there was some kind of confrontation among the four who were all associated with the shrine, Kyodo said.

One of those wounded was in serious condition, while the other sustained a minor injury, news reports said.

Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world, and attacks involving weapons of any kind are unusual.

TOKYO – A drone that hovers over Japanese employees and blares music to force them to go home was unveiled on Thursday (Dec 7), as the country tries to reduce its notoriously long work hours.

The “T-Frend” buzzes over those trying to work late, blasting out the strains of Auld Lang Syne, a Scottish tune typically used in Japan to announce that a store is closing.

“You can’t really work when you think ‘it’s coming over any time now’ and hear Auld Lang Syne along with the buzz,” said Norihiro Kato, a director at Taisei, an office security and cleaning firm that co-developed the system.

The drone is equipped with a camera, which stores footage on an SD card. Office scenes can also be monitored almost in real time from a remote location.

The machine recognises its location on a building floor without GPS. It takes off from its port, makes a surveillance flight on a pre-set path and then returns autonomously.

Taisei plans to start the T-Frend service in April in collaboration with drone system developer Blue Innovation and telecoms operator NTT East.

The fee for the service is yet to be officially set but “the target price” is around 500,000 yen (S$6,000) a month, said Kato.

T-Frend’s developers are also studying the possibility of giving the drone facial recognition technology to tell who is in the office after hours or whether there is an intruder.

Administrative officials at many companies push overtimers out of the door but this has ironically resulted in these officials working overtime themselves, to say nothing of “causing friction between employees”, the companies said in a statement.

Firms have therefore turned to security companies for this task, but they have struggled to provide enough staff given a nationwide labour shortage in Japan.

T-Frend, therefore, serves the twin function of reducing overtime and making up for this labour shortage, the firms claimed.

Japan’s government has been trying to change a culture in which working long hours is perceived as proof of loyalty and dedication.

Every year in Japan, long working hours are blamed for dozens of deaths due to strokes, heart attacks and suicides.

In February, the country launched the “Premium Friday” programme, urging employees to knock off early on the last Friday of the month with the aim of both reducing work hours and invigorating spending.

But the plan fell flat with many claiming the last Friday of the month is one of their busiest days.

Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan on Thursday cancelled attending the national mineral management policy committee at Government House.

The deputy premier instead assigned Natural Resources and Environment Minister General Surasak Karnjanarat to chair the meeting.

Government House reporters have noticed that Prawit seems to be trying to avoid facing the media after being criticised for his possession of what appear to be an extravagantly luxurious watch and diamond ring, which were not declared in his assets.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) will hold a meeting today to consider whether to launch an investigation into Prawit’s assets.