A Facebook user going by the name ‘Doi Harnphanijaroen’ posted a clip featuring a well-known hotel chef selling food by the side of the road, after losing his job for two months due to COVID-19, admiring him for his creativity and fighting spirit.
It turns out Chef Sriwan Suksabai, 56, said that he had been a Chinese chef at a famous hotel in Chiang Mai for many years, but asked not to share the name of the hotel.
He has been without a job since 1st March, when the hotel restaurant closed down. He said that it has been a very stressful time as he has costs such as living, rent and other expenses which he simply couldn’t meet without a salary. He therefore decided to use the 5,000 baht received from the government to purchase a second hand cart and opened his own street side restaurant on the 4th May.
After selling dishes in the hundreds of baht at the hotel restaurant, he is now selling basic one-dish meals of basil fried rice, fried rice with ommelette, fried rice with kale, etc. for 25-30 baht each. For an extra 5 baht you can have a fried egg.
He said since he has been open near Muang Mai Market, business has been decent. Starting at 5pm daily he said that he wasn’t able to move very far as the cart was very old, but he is satisfied with the number of customers at this time and hopes that this will see him through the crisis.