Tag: chinatown bangkok food

T&K Seafood in Bangkok’s Chinatown.

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

The suckling pig in Bangkok.

The BF’s plans were derailed thanks to our flight’s delay. Instead of arriving in Bangkok just in time for our first Thai lunch before checking into our hotel, we arrived in front of our hotel, exhausted and famished.

The first thing that greeted me after I exited the taxi was the picture of a chubby man with his thumb up over a roast suckling pig, going for 1500 baht. The image burnt into my brains.

We checked in after what seemed like a really long day. While I oohed and aahed over my BF’s brilliant choice of hotel (Shanghai Mansion), at the back of my mind I had only one goal…to convince him to eat a whole suckling pig with yours truly.

“The restaurant next door serves a whole suckling pig for 1500 baht. Lets do it?”

“Okay.”

And that…is why he’s the love of my life.

The restaurant is called “China Town Scala Shark Fins Restaurant”. There were dried shark fins all over the place but we weren’t there for the fins. We probably shouldn’t have supported a restaurant that sell shark fins anyway but it didn’t cross our minds then.

# – China Town Scala Shark Fins Restaurant.

I was surprised to see a bunch of Malaysian girls around my age at another table having individual claypots of shark fins. Stupid girls. Yes, I judge them.

Anyway, besides the pig, we also ordered a bunch of other dishes. In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have. There were afterall, only two of us :P

# – Really fresh fried kangkung (water convolvulus). Crisp and tender, yums!

# – Crabmeat fried rice. Eggy with sweetness of crabmeat coming through, pretty good.

# – Cold jellyfish with sesame. Wasn’t bad, I’ve had better.

We hoovered up the rice, vegetables and jellyfish like it’s our first day out of prison. Finally the pig made its grand appearance.

# – Applause, please.

# – That glee in the eye.

The way the roast suckling pig was served was actually quite unfamiliar to me. There were only crispy skins and honestly we felt a bit confused because if it’s just pork skins, there really was not much to eat!

# – Suckling pork skin with bread and pickled cucumbers.

We realised that the flesh was still attached to the carcass so we started hacking at it with a fork. Little did we know that our innocent activity soon started a sort of commotion. One of the waiting staff who was observing us came to us in a hurry and with the very little grasp of English she had, kept saying, “no cook”, “no cook” while her hands kept making this sawing motion.

We were baffled but soon deducted that the chef would pop by in a bit to professionally slice off the flesh. We stopped eating altogether because we thought we had wanted to save the crispy skins to be eaten with the meat. 15 very boring minutes later….the same waiting staff got one of her colleagues with better grasp of English to talk to us.

“You eat skin first, meat now not cook yet. After finish, we take pig back in to cut and cook. You want cook what style?”

We felt like dumbasses :P

But you got to give it to Thai customer service. They do try their best there.

In the end, we settled on garlic and pepper to be cooked with the rest of the pig. It was a fine decision because it was delicious….and huge.

# – Our now chopped up garlic pepper suckling pig.

# – The BF and his pile of bones.

# – And that…was my expression for the rest of the day.

Yes, it was an absolutely splendid day.

China Town Scala Shark Fins Restaurant
483-5 Yaowarat Road,
Sampantawong,
Bangkok 10100
Tel: +66 (0) 2623 0183-5
Website