Farewell to the queen of Thai food: A tribute to Amy Chanta

Over a seven-night vigil, they came – dressed in black – to Wat Buddharangsee, a small Thai temple beside a heritage house in a quiet Annandale street. Led by a row of orange-clad monks, hundreds of Thai men, women and families chanted and prayed for the safe passing of Amy Chanta. The gracious, smiling force behind Sydney's Chat Thai restaurant group had died in Thailand a week earlier after a long and gruelling battle with cancer.

Additional testament to Chanta's influence were extravagant beribboned wreaths on stands by the altar, bearing the names of fellow Sydney Thai businesses and associations. And such was Chanta's charisma and lifelong generosity – and always, great cooking – that a string of non-Thai speakers joined the mourners each night. Paying tribute were, among others, chefs Peter Gilmore (Quay) and his wife Kath, Paul Carmichael (Momofuku Seiobo) and Morgan McGlone (Belles Hot Chicken, Sunday), former Billy Kwong front of house Kin Chen, Jane and Jimmy Barnes. And that's not counting what Chanta's restaurateur-writer-farmer-TV-presenter daughter Palisa Anderson describes as "so, so many amazing and incredible messages from all over, it's meant so much to me".

So who was Amy Chanta? First and foremost, she was the powerhouse behind one of Sydney's original and most authentic Thai eateries. From a short-lived fine diner in Darlinghurst (1989) through to the long-standing Chat Thai in Randwick (opened 1992), she leaves eight Chat Thais in total. She is part of the reason that authentic Thai cuisine has such a strong and well-established presence in Sydney, arguably more so than elsewhere in the country.

The real ground-breaker was the Haymarket eatery (2007), with its bright yellow branding and funky, exposed brick and dark wood fit-out, designed by her fledgling architect son, Pat Laoyont. It was not your typical Thai, from the look and feel to the food itself.

Her menus were notable for the absence of template Thai – dishes such as sweetened coconut red and green curry sauces – and for the presence of northern-style grilled meats with nam jim jaew (bitter dipping sauce), dark-brothed boat noodle soup, acacia leaf omelettes, Amy's famous "hungry" noodles (see recipe) and the spectacle of tiny pandan and blue pea-flower dumplings, made by staff in the front window.

It was here 10 years ago that I interviewed Chanta for the (Sydney) magazine about the birth of Sydney's Thai Town in Haymarket, a conglomeration of Thai eateries and grocery stores that cemented our city's love affair with true Thai tastes and ingredients. "It feels like a Thai market here," Chanta told me, "and in Thai markets you can eat at any time of day or night."

[Chanta] was just a beautiful Buddhist influence, so generous and positive, a breath of fresh air.

Melissa O'Shea

Building on the presence of Campbell Street's legendary Pontip and Mae Cheng grocery stores, her late-night eatery became an anchor for what was eventually recognised in 2013 by the City of Sydney as an official Thai Town. "We are all friends, and we are all proud that we built Thai Town up this way," Chanta beamed.

Fellow founding member and CEO of the Thai Town Business and the Thai Community Association, Joy Roche recalls Chanta as an ever-energetic advocate for the area. "Everyone is feeling very sad," she says. "She was a very active member. She is such a quality person with a kind heart. A good example for the other businesses. I admired her hard-working nature and very creative thinking, always forward-looking and also a philanthropist, supporting others."

Those memories included, for Roche, favourite dishes such as a simple pad Thai with prawns. "She made it so authentic and the way the Thai food should be. She made it very famous and a quality kind of food. She's the queen of Thai food!"

From a middle-class Chinese family upbringing in Bangkok, Amonrat [Amy] Chanta came to Australia in the 1980s to forge a new path for herself and, eventually joining her, her two young children. She worked as a machinist and a cleaner and then at one of Sydney's very first Thai restaurants, U-Thong in Cammeray – a place of discovery for many early adopters (including me).

She also took up a job – surprisingly, perhaps – at her local McDonald's. Now an arts conservator, uni student Melissa O'Shea also did her shifts on the burger line alongside Amy. "We learned so much then, how big brands work to streamline processes, to make big businesses out of small businesses. I didn't realise she had such ambitions though. She was just a beautiful Buddhist influence, so generous and positive, a breath of fresh air. She brought food to Maccas all the time, constantly feeding us. And I remember she came to my 21st with a massive platter of curry puffs!"

"For 18 months she worked at McDonald's – we loved it. It meant she was home with us at night," Anderson recalls. "But she was plotting her next step. 'I'm going to open a takeaway joint. Something more casual, my kind of food,' she told us."

"It was no overnight success," Anderson says. "We certainly slogged it there for quite a while. I remember manning those tables from the time I was, like, 10."

Apart from the eight Chat Thai locations, the canteen-style Samosorn and food-court stalwart Assamm Eating House – each with contemporary, catchy design and lengthy made-to-order menus, always with great desserts – the family business now also includes another Haymarket favourite. Thai-Australian Boon Cafe with its grocery arm, Jarern Chai, alongside – sells fresh fruit and veg as well as take-home meals, in the best Thai Town tradition.

As another famous Sydney Thai chef-restaurateur readily acknowledges: "Not only was Amy one of the first Thais to create true Thai food as she understood it in Australia, her role has developed way beyond my contribution – by growing her own, authentic Thai ingredients, to give the proper Thai taste." And that, from Bangkok-based David Thompson (with his six restaurants across Australia, Hong Kong and Thailand) is no small accolade.

And there lies the greatest legacy of all, the inspiration for her daughter to celebrate and share the importance of farming (Chanta had her own, Palisa Farm, in Thailand), as well as care and respect for our farmers and the planet.

For Anderson, the purchase in 2015 with her husband Matt Anderson of 45 hectares in the Byron hinterland to create Boon Luck Farm was a true family affair. "'This is your future,' Mum said. "She really encouraged me."

Boon Luck Farm's certified organic produce is now the backbone of Chat Thai's ingredient list and focus. Anderson is determined to push further. "We just need to delve deeper, making every aspect of our business ecologically more sustainable. Putting more organics and regenerative produce on our menus. Mum really set the scene for me. She was already not using prawns from overseas, already serving whole fish that was local and line-caught, and that's why the farm is how it is now.

"Before she was really sick, she said to me, 'Always be happy that you grow your own food and feed your family. You have always got to align that with your business. Your business practice and your personal practice, they have to align.' And like so many other things she taught me, that was a beautiful lesson."

Eulogy

Sharing her mother's drive and charisma, Amy Chanta's daughter, Palisa Anderson, has achieved great success in her own right, as a thoughtful restaurateur, writer, dedicated explorer of Thai food traditions and, more recently, as presenter of Water Heart Food on SBS TV, an exploration of food cultures guided by the Thai principle of nahm-jai – literally, "water of the heart", but practically, a guide to living mindfully, with generosity, compassion, empathy and awareness. It was her mother's guiding principle.

Here is an excerpt from Anderson's eulogy, to be published in a funeral book to celebrate her mother's life.

My mum admired trees, especially those that fruited. We spent much time bonding over the years travelling around together, sourcing fruits and vegetables and meeting the people who grew our food.

She was implanting the seed in me to appreciate our beautiful natural world.

The thought recently came to me as she has been ill over the past two years, that she is not unlike a great big giant forest tree. Wearing and weathering the years gracefully, like bark that builds and sheds with the seasons, healing itself over with burls when it is wounded or has stunted new growth.

Trees in nature are an arbiter of life for all sorts of creatures, bacteria and mycelium sheltering within it, under it and resting on their canopy, creating and exchanging food systems.

This is exactly what makes them remarkable and magnificent.

This was my mother, a living, breathing microcosm who sheltered, fed, stood steady and resplendent through her life, being a devoted member of her community – akin to tree guilds in forests, creating profound bonds of resilience. An exchange network in action, always buttressing up the young or weaker ones, the ones that needed her shade or simply the ones that sought her company.

She is an old-growth forest tree fallen.

It was time. The conditions were right, and she fell.

And as we all know, that is not the end of the tree. It continues to serve an important purpose, slowly breaking down into food for the forest floor, regenerating life all around it.

The tree does all this naturally, selflessly, so that those remaining may survive and thrive.

Amy's hungry noodles recipe

This was what my mother would go raiding the kitchen for when she couldn't think of what she wanted to eat from the extensive Chat Thai menu. She used to say that when you've been looking at the same food going through on the pass every day, it would just make her want something simple and fast. So this was it, borne out of her love for healthy and delicious. It has now become one of the most well-loved dishes on our current menu. Please do try to use as many locally grown organic vegetables as you can find (as she did, sourced from our Boon Luck Farm) for this dish to work well.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp brown rice vinegar
• 1.5 tsp sweet dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp honey
• 4 tbsp macadamia nut oil
• 2 bullet chillies, finely chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 220g fresh egg noodles (MC Yee's was one she liked)
• 4 large king prawns, carapace removed keeping the head intact, split and deveined.
• 170g leafy Asian greens (such as choy sum, wombok, bok choy), stems and leaves cut into 10cm pieces

Method

1. Mix the seasoning sauce ingredients together, whisk well and set aside.
2. In a pot of boiling water, blanch the egg noodles for two minutes and set aside.
3. Arrange all the ingredients around your stove top, ready for quick stir-frying.
4. Set a wok on the highest heat possible, pour in oil and when it starts to smoke a little add the prawns, cooking each side until the edges are golden (about 30 seconds on each side), remove and set aside.
5. Keeping the wok on high heat, add the chillies and garlic and cook until fragrant and golden. Add the noodles and the seasoning sauce, tossing through thoroughly to incorporate the garlic and chilli. When the sauce has absorbed into the noodles add the cooked prawns and vegetables, toss through until they are folded in and wilted, only a minute or two. Serve on a plate and enjoy immediately.

Serves: 2