01/16/09

I love this place

by littlegg

I have been coming here for years and always have a great experience. Its my favorite place to bring out of town guests to kick off the ballard experience. The food and service are always great. Parking is always a bit of a problem in ballard, but that goes for every restaurant there. I always get the same thing-though i cannot pronounce it-it is the garlic chicken noodle dish. I get an undeniable craving for it every couple weeks! Great casual place to go to kick of a night in Ballard.

11/23/08

Awsome Thai food

by KFuN

We ate here last night for the first time and I was really impressed. The food was very well balanced and fresh. I also like the ambiance. They have a cool old opium dent downstairs. Check it out! I would highly recommend Thaiku.

10/16/08

Always a good time!

by roxxyhula

This is one of my favorite places to come, whether you are dressed down or dressed up ! Bartender Jake is AWESOME !

Try the crying tiger beef app and the crab rangoons.....

Known for their Yohito's, but I prefer just a mojito : )

• Pros: quick and attentive staff
• Cons: can get super busy

10/06/08

U can't go wrong with their Tom Kai Gai

by smoke_it

I eat here a couple times a month with some co-workers for lunch. The food can be inconsistent but I've found that the Tom ka gai (coconut curry soup w/ chicken) is always good. Service can be slow but the prices are reasonable.

• Pros: Downtown Ballard, good for lunch
• Cons: parking can be tough, service can be iffy

04/07/08

GREAT LIVE JAZZ ON THURSDAY NIGHTS!!

by shimbl

Best underground jazz scene in Seattle! Wow! What a surprise. I went there after a movie on a Thursday night and was treated to some of the best jazz I've ever heard! Mark Seals, Jeff Johnson and Tadd Britton were performing that night. It was absolutely the best I've heard since I moved to Seattle from New York City. We were too late to order food, but we decided to get a cocktail and we ordered a drink that had lotus root in it. It was delicious! We stayed until the music stopped at around 11:30. I went there a couple other times and there were other people playing that were also very good players. My understanding is that they have live jazz there twice a week and have done so for years. It's like an underground secret or something. that makes it even cooler! The place is the best, most unique club in all of Ballard and Seattle as far as I'm concerned. It has it all. It's friendly. It's busy. It's relaxed and it's in the heart of old Ballard. Anyone who is visiting town for the first time should go there on a Thursday night and catch the live jazz. There's NO COVER CHARGE! But there is a one drink minimum for the psychadelic drinks. I would have ordered TWO! FIVE STARS FOR THE GREAT LIVE JAZZ!! And FIVE STARS FOR THE ATMOSPHERE!!

I think people who go to the trouble of writing a bad review of such a cool place MUST work at a rival restaurant in the area. While other places all around it are empty, The Thaiku is always packed. I guess that speaks for the quality of the service and the menu, but it's the extras that make the club enticing enough to motivate me to get up and be a part of the scene. Damn, this place is COOL!

• Pros: The live jazz, the drinks, the service, the atmosphere, the location
• Cons: not enough parking

02/19/08

BEST UNDERGROUND JAZZ SCENE IN THE CITY!!

by OLugs

Wow! This place is GREAT! I had the good fortune to go there on a Thursday night when there was a jazz band playing there. But it wasn't just any jazz band. It was Tadd Britton, Mark Seals and Jeff Johnson. These guys are three MONSTER players! It was fantastic! there is a beautiful grand piano in there and I couldn't believe it when I found out they have been having live jazz in there every Thursday night for years! This is a real underground jazz club as good as you would find anywhere in the country! I try to go there every Thursday to see who's playing. They don't really advertise it but I highly recommend checking out a Thursday night. They didn't charge a cover charge for the live music, either! I had a drink called a "Yohito" and it was very tasty! The food is EXCELLENT! I had the Phad Thai and it had a real tamerin paste base as opposed to the ketchup that many American/Thai places use. I have been to Thailand many times and the food here is really authentic. I give it 5 stars just for the quality of the music alone!

12/14/07

Good food, atmosphere, drinks, prices

by kenwa

The menu, service, drinks, atmosphere, prices, and bar are all good. They also have a small parking lot.

08/30/07

our favorite Thai restaurant

by rayaphd

And quite possibly our favorite restaurant, considering we eat out at Thaiku more than anywhere else!

Must try: Fresh rolls, pad see iew, kraplau, tom yum

05/18/07

First and last experience at Thaiku

by lauraliz

As a new resident of Ballard, I would love to love Thaiku. Sadly, my first (and last) Thaiku experience was a big disappointment. From the ambiance to the food to the drinks, everything was bad. First, the ambiance: this place was loud! We went on a crowded night after a big event in Ballard, so it makes sense that the restaurant was full. Still, it was louder than it should have been.

Second, the food: nothing was good. We started with vegetarian salad rolls. The veggies in the rolls were fresh, but the tofu was rubbery and overdone. The peanut dipping sauce that we subbed for the hoisin sauce was separated and lacked flavor. For entrees, we ordered numbers 21 and 23 (I can't remember the names, but these are their numbers on the menu). The first dish was veggies with a soy-based sauce over crunchy chow mein noodles. The flavor was just ok; the dish overall was weird. The second dish was rice noodles with a red sauce that had a strong, smoky/sweet flavor. This was just weird too. After a while, the flavor started to grow on me, but not enough so that I'd go back and try it again - it just became less weird.

Finally, the cocktails: Thaiku's menu provides warnings about the potency of the yohimbe drinks - they say that the aphrodisiacal yohimbe can cause hallucinations. We were lured in by the hype and each ordered the Yohito. They were bitter and disgusting. One of my friends finished hers, but the other two remained untouched after a few sips. Our server noticed that we weren't drinking ours and sympathetically asked if we didn't like them - she clearly gets this response often. She offered to add more soda to make them more palatable.

The best thing that I can say about this place is that they have a big bowl of candy by the door.

I have no idea why there seem to be so many Thaiku fans. I can only guess that we ordered the wrong things. Either way, there are so many good places in Ballard that I won't spend another evening trying to like Thaiku.

• Pros: Attentive service, candy bowl
• Cons: Food, ambiance, cocktails

04/30/07

Try the crazy martini listed below

by seattle_snob

There's a strict one-per-customer limit on the Yohito, a mojito made with the African herb yohimbe, rumored to be an aphrodisiac, stimulant and mild hallucinogen