I wish we had known about this restaurant on the day we arrived in Bangkok. Well, perhaps not knowing was really a blessing in disguise, otherwise I would have insisted to eat at the same place for four straight days and that would have made us really lousy holiday makers/foodies, wouldn’t that?
T&K Seafood was really near to our hotel, so we always passed by it. It was basically a small corner restaurant with outdoor seatings extended all the way onto the road.
# – Lets play spot the farang…
It was always packed and you’d notice that many of its patrons were farangs. The presence of white people was one of the reasons we kind of delayed eating there, thinking that it’s a tourist trap, EVENTHOUGH we’d read plenty of good reviews on Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor.
Thankfully, after seeing one too many empty large cockle shell, we decided to check it out near midnight right after a superb massage session, when there weren’t so many customers.
Of course I ordered the juicy, fat cockles. I was very happy that the manager spoke fluent English, so I got him to make sure that the cockles would not be overcooked. They arrived on my table, just lightly warmed through and still bloody. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant, yes.
# – Bloody, juicy, succulent cockles.
And when Thais clean cockles, they really do clean them! There’s not a trace of mud or sand on the shells.
# – I was in heaven.
I’ve always felt that eating cockles was like eating poor man’s oysters. So imagine my surprise when I noticed that T&K Seafood served actual oysters as well, side by side with the cockles like they were just cheap, common nothings. I could barely contained my glee.
# – Raw oyster salad with a side of raw herbs and a bowl of deep fried shallots.
# – There must had been about 15 decent sized raw oysters in there for about 120 baht. DIRT CHEAP. Sorry about my post-Thai massage hair :P
Suffice to say, I was all oystered out. I went back to the hotel so contented and happy. Then, we return to T&K the next day.
This time, we made sure we had loads of stomach space for a gigantic feast. There were so many other dishes on the menu that caught my eyes the previous night but we couldn’t possibly order because we already had dinner somewhere else.
# – Like this raw prawn salad. I FREAKIN’ MISS THIS ONE /SNIFFS
The prawns were so, so fresh and went so well with the spicy chilli garlic sauce. So good, I had two plates of raw prawns!
# – The stuffed crab was really good too. The BF ordered another after devouring this one up :D
# – Lovely deep fried squids.
# – Superb tomyam! Very good balance of spiciness, sourness and sweetness from the seafood. This is supposedly the smallest size but quite a large portion.
# – Crabmeat fried rice. What is with Thais and fried rice? I’ve never had a lousy fried rice in Thailand!
# – Cheap Thai beer and seriously, the best soda water in the world comes from the Land of Smiles. They don’t seem to fizzle out!
# – Aftermath.
I am incredibly impressed with T&K. By Malaysian standard, the amount of seafood would have cost us a bomb, but we ended up paying around RM150+. Crazy cheap!
# – T&K Seafood.
I will surely return to T&K on my next trip to Bangkok!
T &K Seafood Address (just down the road from Shanghai Mansion Hotel, you won’t miss the crowd)
49-51 Phadung Dao Road, Chinatown,
10100, Bangkok,
Thailand.
Tel: (02) 223 4519
Operation hours: Daily, 4.30pm – 2.00 am
