Frank Sinatra's New York, New York comprehensively captures why Hong Thaimee first decided to chase her dreams in the Big Apple 10 years ago. "You know that song right, how it says if you can make it there you can make it anywhere," the New York-based chef and founder of Ngam Restaurant in East Village explains. "It's a city where all the best of the world is at, including food."
Today, the ravishing beauty is another international success story that her own fellow countrymen are mostly unaware of. She easily passes for a model, but is, in fact, an accomplished chef who has clambered her way from the bottom of Jean-Georges' kitchen to open a restaurant of her own in East Village - one that is frequented by Hollywood stars and has become a shoo-in favourite when it comes to food articles and programmes in American media.
In her long-time ambition to "cook Thai food for the world", the founder of the modern Thai comfort food restaurant has also found herself as the first Thai woman to compete in Iron Chef America, as well as creating a gorgeous recipe book with Rizzoli called True Thai -- much to a raving review from Vanity Fair in 2015.
Hong Thaimee in Bangkok earlier this month.
As of late, Hong may be jet-setting around the world to cook for charity galas and manage her pop-up stores in a guise not unlike one of a celebrity chef, but she finds time to reveal her arduous journey and recipes for life she's reaped from the galleys in a soon-to-be-released book: Chef Ying Lek (Iron Lady Chef).
The Chiang Mai native wasn't always based in the city that never sleeps. Rewind back to 10 years ago and what you'd see was a Bangkok corporate career woman whose life had hit an empty point. Her search for purpose, through Christ and a couple of SWOT analyses, pushed her towards the road of food.
"I wondered what I could do to make my life one of purpose and realised that I could use Thai food as a product," says the 40-year-old.
"People love Thai food but no one really represents Thai food on a global stage. Being a chef was not my priority though, I could be a caterer, Thai food instructor, blogger or anything to represent Thai food." With her savings, mission and bags packed, she headed to New York on a vision trip, where she met her ex-husband and eventually moved.
At the suggestion of her ex-husband, of being an authority of what you do through the means of a commercial kitchen, she decided to create her own opportunity by applying to a hostess job opening at Spice Market, a restaurant in the Meatpacking district, which served Southeast Asian fare, headed by the world-famous chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
It raised the manager's eyebrows that a well-travelled woman with an MBA and corporate credentials would want to work in this position, but Hong talked her way into her real intentions: to work in the kitchen.
"I told him Thai food is in me and that I know I can give him something," she recalls. "He looked at me like I was crazy, but helped me out by slipping my resumé in. Another day the chef de cuisine called me up and told me to come in the next day with my knife set and non-slippery shoes."
Armed with her "yes, chef" attitude, she went in the next day and got hired on the spot.
Hong's latest book, out next week, will include both cooking tips and recipes for success in life. Photo © Hong Thaimee
"Whatever they told you to do, that was the first thing you said," she advises. "The kitchen's a little bit like the military."
With her limited experience in the kitchen, Hong got through her days at the cold station by Googling how certain knife techniques were done and from her own seasoned palate.
"My grandmother was a great cook so I tasted a lot of food," she says. "I liked to help her in the kitchen and it's all thanks to the curriculum in Thai schools too. I grew up having to learn how to make nam prik [chilli pastes] so I knew all the basic stuff."
When a colleague in the kitchen found out that she was Thai, he asked her what she really thought about the pad Thai they were serving and if she could cook a good one for him.
"My heart was out of my body when I found out that it was the sous chef -- Jean-Georges' right hand guy," Hong recalls.
"I burnt the first batch because I had never worked in a commercial kitchen before, but I got it right the second time. He said it was amazing how there wasn't any sauce in the pad Thai but I had got flavour into the noodle. He said he would tell Jean-Georges about me and I came home to cry that night -- it was like a validation that I could make it happen, that I didn't lure myself into some fantasy."
It would eventually lead to the esteemed Jean-Georges to finally taste and praise her pad Thai weeks later. As the Frenchman had worked in Thailand himself for a few years, his comment that Hong's cooking was exactly like what he had tasted in Thailand would become her solid sense of confidence in her cooking.
"But before all that, I barely made it in the kitchen -- I almost got fired twice because I couldn't perform," she continues. "I had to learn from scratch and walk through fire to have it. When tickets come into the kitchen, it's about managing how many plates you can do at once. I didn't know how to organise at first but I hung in there. I cried every night but taught myself to visualise that tomorrow's going to be a better day."
Following the popularity of Ngam, Hong was approached by Rizzoli to create a Thai cookbook with a foreword by chef Jean-Georges. Photos © Noah Fecks and Paul Wagtouicz
She would have to put up with opening the fridge to find two avocados, a banana and cream, as well. Penile humour from male colleagues.
"I had to fight my corner, not just from a lack of experience, but also because the kitchen is not a woman's world. One day, the kitchen was busy and the buzzer wanted to prank me and the plate wouldn't come out. If it came out wrong I would have to do it all over again so I just slammed the table and said, 'Do not mess around with me'. You have to let them know that you aren't just some Asian woman they can take advantage of."
After a trying year at Spice Market, Hong returned to train at Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi in Chiang Mai before coming back to join Perry St., another one of Jean-Georges' restaurant in New York. Having worked through all these training grounds, it wasn't long before her own friends showed encouragement that her delicious creations warranted a place of her own.
What followed would be a turmoil of unreliable investors and endless struggles, but after a lot of successful pitching and loans, Ngam finally opened in 2011.
Serving Thai food and Chiang Mai snacks, krabong (fried sweet potato) would be paired with a red curry mayo and sai ooa (traditional Chiang Mai sausage) within a burger -- a reflection of the snacks she grew up eating, but tweaked into modern fare in her attempts to bridge the East and the West.
The celebrity chef wouldn't own the first successful Thai restaurant in New York -- chefs like Andy Ricker of Pok Pok or other Thai men have paved the way for her -- but she is definitely the first female chef in NYC who attractively spreads the gospel about authentic Thai food to much attention.
"There is no reason whatsoever to produce bad Thai food, with all the herbs or pastes available here," Hong insists. "Fresh galangal and lemongrass is grown in America. You just need to maintain your recipe and quality."
In Hong's search for meaning, luckily she's found a love for life that translates into love for the food she cooks. It is likely that her future openings of Ngam Box (a grab and go rice/curry concept eatery) and another northern Thai food restaurant will be no bland affair.
"I don't think we should underestimate a Westerner's ability to take our real taste. They're very educated and their palate is so international. I would love for Thai people to have confidence in who we are, that our food is so charming. There are so many tastes in one bite and it's so well-rounded. Our taste is good now, we just need to improve on the quality."
Chef Ying Lek (Iron Lady Chef): Recipes For Life From A Thai Kitchen In New York will be available at major bookstores on June 1 for 270 baht.
