T & K Seafood

Get there before 7pm or accept your place in the line. The green-shirted crew at the mouth of Soi Phadung Dao has been grilling prawns and steaming crab curry since the 1980s, and the corner has become the default image of Yaowarat at night: plastic stools on the pavement, the day's catch laid out on ice, neon overhead, smoke off the woks.

Order the grilled river prawns, the oyster omelette, the crab curry. That's the trio people come for, and the kitchen turns them out fast and loud. Prices land well under what a sit-down restaurant would charge for the same plates. What you're paying for in atmosphere you give up in comfort, so if you want air conditioning, tablecloths or a quiet conversation, this isn't your night. Neither is it if you're squeamish about eating a few feet from traffic.

It's not a hidden find and it isn't trying to be. It's the busiest, most photographed seafood corner in Chinatown, and it still cooks well enough to earn it.