While our Singaporean friends were in town a week ago, I went with a couple of them to Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, for a nighttime seafood dinner.

The streets are no less busy once the sun sets as impromptu restaurants – movable feasts, really – open up on the sidewalks.  Seafood is the specialty of the neighborhood, with several well-known sidewalk vendors offering the freshest seafood available in town.

A dozen river prawns, simply grilled.  The flesh was sweet, the only thing needed was some spicy homemade sauce of chilies, fish sauce, and lime juice.

A plate full of crabs, steamed and cracked for our easy eating.  The prawns, crab, and a plate of fried rice were all the three of us needed for a tasty and surprisingly affordable dinner.

As we finished dinner and headed back to the friends’ hotel, I noticed the moon, just a day or two past full, lost amidst the bright lanterns of Yaowarat.