- [Justin] You guys, welcome to Lake Balboa.

We have two very special riders for today's episode, my parents.

- Hi, I am Justin Pichetrungsi, and I'm your pilot for this episode of "Joy Ride".

I grew up in Los Angeles here at Anajak Thai.

I don't know how you guys had kids and ran the restaurant.

- [Dad] I opened the restaurant in 1981.

- Our customer in early year always remembered seeing Justin doing his homework in the corner.

- In the summers, I would help dad in the kitchen.

My time was split between the back and in the front of house.

"My name's Justin.

I'm, I'm Ricky's..." I would be a really shy, my dad would be like, "Just go tell them who you are and bring them these things while you're at it."

- Guys, this is five minutes from your house.

Why aren't you guys coming... You guys should come here and like talking about like, you know, your mental health, like sit around, do things like this with dad.

You guys are holding hands.

I've never seen you guys hold hands in 65 years.

- I want his, his hand to... His finger to stretch.

- 2019, my dad was still cooking and by that time, I mean he was, he had already put in about, it was on his 38th year on the line.

- When I have stroke.

- We thinking of selling the restaurant because he has stroke.

So I cannot run the restaurant by myself.

But luckily Justin stepped in.

- I'm not quite sure that time he- - He want to do it or not.

- He want to do it or not because that time he work at Disney and he's a director, you know.

So he make good money.

- We were in the hospital and I pretty much, I never went back to, I never went back to Disney.

I immediately came here and I started working on stuff.

I think that they didn't necessarily want this for me, hmm, at the beginning.

It was like, who was gonna do it?

You know, who was gonna go to the market and who was gonna make the sauces and who was gonna... You know.

Once you work in corporate and you work in a big studio, you know, you start to look around and you start to learn what you learn.

And I look back at what this was and how this place had really provided for my family.

I realized this place is special.

I took over the restaurant in 2019 after my father's stroke, and I've been here ever since.

Guys, we're going back.

- [Mom] Okay, go.

- Okay.

- Okay, okay, okay.

- I, ah, okay.

I help.

- Ah!

- I help.

- Is that you helping, mom?

- Yes.

Watch out now.

- [Dad] I met her in 1983.

I met her on the airplane.

- I was a flight attendant of Thai International.

- So then I say, "Well, that girl is cute.

I need to talk to her."

I say, "Hello."

When she came in to ask me a drink.

- I like his smile and his eyes.

- I got some white wine, chardonnay- - On ice.

- On the ice.

- I think he's funny and, but I serve him anyway.

He kept calling me and writing me letter.

- I call her all over the world.

- Europe, Australia.

- Australia.

- Any city like he tried to prove to me that he really like me.

In July, he proposed to me.

He is very good husband, very good father.

So I'm lucky.

So I thank God for that, that I marry the right man and a very good man.

I did not know that after we married I'm gonna work this hard though.

- [Justin] Gotcha.

- You know, in Thailand, if you marry them, like this is like men like him, restaurant owner.

No, the wife is just collecting the money.

Doesn't need to do anything much.

- Yeah.

- No, I do everything even clean the bathroom.

Everything, except cooking.

Except cooking.

- This is funny.

This is like we're riding a tuk-tuk in Thailand.

That's what this is like.

- Not exactly, tuk-tuk the driver in front.

Tuk-tuk is more adventurous.

- Tuk-tuk is more adventurous.

Mom, we're on the side of the lake.

You guys can- - Wow.

- ... almost fall in.

I'm honestly not good at riding this bike.

Are you guys okay swimming?

- Ah, no.

- Well, the steering is hilarious.

They all were dubious about what I was gonna do with the restaurant.

So I think a lot of the people that were working here, they didn't really understand what I was gonna contribute and if I even knew how to do what dad was doing properly.

Even now mom's like, "What's this dish?"

You know, like Thai Taco Tuesday, like what are we a Mexican restaurant, you know?

And eventually people started to kind of realize like, you know, we were really trying to break the mold here and do something different.

We were LA Times 2022 Restaurant of the Year.

I was in the class of 2022's Food & Wine Best New Chef.

We did it.

2023 I won the James Beard Award for Best Chef in California.

I was like, "Mom," like, "I'm nominated for a Beard."

And she's like, "Oh my God, that's so awesome.

Where so..." Dad's like, "Congratulations.

That's so great."

My mom goes, "Yeah, but what's the, what's the Beards?"

- And the winner is Justin Pichetrungsi.

- [Announcer 1] This is really one of the coolest stories in food right now.

A kid grows up in his family's Thai restaurant and he builds a career in design at Disney.

Then his father gets sick and he comes back to the family restaurant and here he is with a Beard Award.

- [Announcer 2] Look at that.

- [Announcer 3] Wow.

- I think they get it.

I think the difference between you guys and me is that you guys don't wanna teach people anything.

The immigrant mindset is, it's your business.

You're the only one with the keys.

You're the only one that knows the recipes.

You're the only one... You know, when I started teaching the recipes to our cooks, my mom was like, "You're giving the recipes to other people?"

And I was like, "What?

You got?

Yeah."

All parts of it you have to learn how to let some of that stuff go.

Don't you think so that you guys can enjoy your life a little bit.

- How you gonna be sure that they're not going bad thing to us?

Or like trying- - You have to develop trust.

I don't understand this idea of that.

If you have that in your mindset, you've got hate in your heart, Mom.

- Can I have for this flower?

- No, you can't.

- I light a candle.

- You're not allowed the flowers.

You gotta learn, you gotta start to learn.

You gotta keep an open mind.

There's other people that have restaurants, have businesses where they're, where the mother of the owner isn't, you know, helicopter momming everyone.

If your mom is your business partner, you don't, sometimes you don't know if you're arguing with your mom or you're arguing with your business partner because I'm looking at her like she's my business partner.

She's looking at me back seeing this, her son yell at her.

The image of this little kid that she raised now like being upset.

- I still see him as a little boy, which he always complained that, "Mom, I'm grown up already."

I, I'm proud of him, but at the same time, I admit, I want my little boy back.

But that that fact of life.

- Me and my parents' arguments are the crux of why the restaurant is interesting.

The tension between the old and the new and what's classic and what's contemporary is only interesting because those two worlds have a dialogue with one another.

- You know what I miss?

- What do you miss?

- I miss on Monday- - That we have dinner together.

- We wait for you to, from the- - Disney.

- From Disney come back.

- And we cook together.

I cook with you.

- And we cook together.

- Yeah.

We miss that Monday.

- I miss that.

- Family day.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- When I think about it, you know, I think the reason why I came back, I mean, I love you guys and I love the food, I love the restaurant, but in the end, I, you know, it's because I love you guys.

You'll understand this if you grew up with older parents, is that you kind of see their mortality earlier in life.

Like, what's the legacy of my, my parents?

What's the legacy of my father and what he did here?

And so I feel like it was out of love that I sort of saw that, you know, something was worth coming back to here.

I'm grateful for both of you guys for keeping the restaurant alive, even through the hard times of the recession after 2008, 2009 and, and getting it to this point now.

- And I'm glad that you, you did make a decision to put all your effort in order to carry on his legacy.

Thank you.

- I say thank you very much.

- Thank you, Justin.

- Thank you to Justin to all the work he done, he did from the bottom, his heart.

I love it.

- The future of this place is to remain a kind of a soulful place to work in and to eat in and to share memories.

Make it a vibrant and creatives atmosphere.

That's all that matters - Actually, I like it now why don't you ride me one more round?

- You want one more round?

They want one more round.