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Little Uncle Finds Its Happy Medium in Capitol Hill

The obsessively beloved Thai joint's new locale is worth a visit.

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Dom yum wun sen is bean thread noodles with roasted pork, ground pork, broth, fried wonton skin, peanuts, lime, and chili.

After Goldilocks moments in spaces too small (the sidewalk takeout down the street), then too big (the Pioneer Square basement), the beloved Little Uncle has found its just-right. Mind you, the packed, modern space has limited seating, but wraparound windows help, and aromas from the open kitchen—tended by careful owners Wiley Frank and Poncharee Kounpungchart—evoke its heady citizen-of-the-world status.

A $13-ish menu of noodle bowls, starring tamarind phad thai (add the side packets of chilies and nuts and sugar if you want intrigue) and exquisite khao soi gai (chicken curry over egg noodles) is served 11am to 9pm, with an added card of shareables after 5pm. Execution remains the bugaboo; rockfish fritters taste glorious, scattered with crisp-fried basil leaves in cucumber vinegar, but soggy. Hard to care when so much else is just right.

Published in the Food Lovers Guide issue of Seattle Met.











Kathryn Robinson
Kathryn Robinson
Senior Writer Seattle native Kathryn Robinson, award-winning restaurant critic and senior writer at Seattle Met, has been anonymously reviewing restaurants for over 30 years—first as editor of the Best Places guidebook series, then as staff critic at Seattle Weekly and contributing critic at The Seattle Times and Seattle magazine.  Midcareer she spent a year-long sabbatical studying comparative religion as a Knight Fellow at Stanford University where she had been an undergrad 10 years earlier, gaining a knowledge base she now calls upon for her monthly “Back Fence” column on our collective urban existence and the meaning it holds for our personal lives. In her off hours she is a partner and a parent—which means she has no off hours.