Jay Fai was born c. 1945 to Chinese immigrant parents, who sold kuaitiao khua kai (chicken noodles) for a living.

Jay Fai did not initially join the family business; instead, she worked as a seamstress for several years, until a fire prompted her to turn to cooking when she was in her thirties.

[d] She opened her restaurant in the 1980s and originally served congee and noodle dishes such as kuaitiao khua kai and rat na, building on her mother's recipes.

[2][3] Jay Fai's restaurant occupies a shophouse on Maha Chai Road, in the neighbourhood known as Samran Rat or Pratu Phi in Bangkok's Phra Nakhon District.

In a 1999 review, Bangkok Post food critic Ung-aang Talay (Bob Halliday) described her as "one of those increasingly rare Mozarts of the noodle pan who can transform very ordinary, lunchtime-at-the-market dishes into masterpieces of local cuisine".

It was the only street restaurant to be awarded a star, and joins a handful of others in Hong Kong and Singapore as a result of Michelin's efforts to diversify its coverage, previously limited to fine dining establishments.