Every great city has a street that smells like this — charcoal and chilli and something frying in oil so hot it spits blue sparks into the dark. Bangkok has a hundred of them.
The vendors set up at dusk and work without stopping until the small hours. There is no menu. You point, you pay, you eat standing up at a plastic table on the pavement while motorbikes weave past your elbow.
This is what travel actually tastes like.