Hong Kong noodle chain Tam Jai is flying high with HK Express tie-up and beauty products

Restaurant chain serving noodles on flights and selling beauty products while rewriting the narrative about its ‘Tam Jai jehjeh’ waitresses

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Tam Jai Sam Gor and Hong Kong airline HK Express have collaborated to launch a mala-flavoured cup noodle that will be available on HK Express flights. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:15am, 5 May 2025

In late March, passengers aboard an HK Express flight to Narita, Tokyo, were in for a unique plane ride.

Shortly after take-off, a middle-aged Chinese woman with a bob and a red T-shirt – rather than a flight attendant – appeared at the front of the cabin. When she started making an in-flight announcement in thick, heavily accented Cantonese, there was a buzz as passengers excitedly pulled out their smartphones to start recording her spiel.

This was not a regular safety briefing. In fact, this short-haired Chinese woman is a famous jehjeh (“older sister”, or auntie, in Cantonese) from Tam Jai Sam Gor Mixian, there to introduce new, mala-flavoured instant noodles now available on HK Express flights in the first collaboration between the airline and the Hong Kong restaurant chain.

Founded in 1996 in the city’s Sham Shui Po neighbourhood, Tam Jai started as a small shop selling Yunnan mixian (rice noodles) with three choices of soup base: clear broth, sour-spicy, and numbing-spicy.

HK Express passengers take videos as a Tam Jai “jehjeh” announces the availability of the restaurant chain’s instant noodles on the in-flight menu. Photo: Erika Na

Today the chain has more than 220 outlets in Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore, Japan and Australia.

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