Sounds good, and I dig northern Thai/Lao food. Like to see catfish larb... and I'm psyched that the writer acknowledged the Thais-don't-eat-with-chopsticks truth (nor do any Southeast Asians except Vietnamese or ethnic Chinese). Perhaps some people will feel appropriately dorky when asking for them. "It's Asian, we should use chopsticks" has never applied to Indian food, though, curiously.

"Thaiku used to be kind of dark, lots of wood beams and really crowded tables. Kind of boring."

The interior of Thaiku would have been interesting enough just with the rickshaws on the ceiling, but they had a friggin opium den downstairs. Not boring.

I've yet to master eating Thai noodles with a spoon. But rice makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, old Thaiku was a big beautiful dark wooden place, with the opium den downstairs and little secret hidey holes of weird art/artifacts here and there. And I loved hiding away in the softly-lit back bar, at one of the hidden corner tables, with the occasional jazz trio set up in the front. The reason "no one" remembers the interior is because "no one" you asked is a Ballard local who loved the place and visited frequently.

(Sorry if that sounded mean; that place was important to me.)

@4: EXACTLY.

Esquire thought Fu Kun Wu was memorable.