Opart Thai House - West Town — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

There are so many Thai restaurants to choose from in the city, but this is by far one of the best! Basically, you can't go wrong from anything you order. Ok, maybe I haven't gotten through the whole menu yet...but from what I've ordered in the past, nothing has failed. Let's start with the appetizers you must get: Crab Rangoons, Moo Ping, Tiger Cry, and Egg Drop Soup. The crab rangoons are delicious, they are a good combination of the ingredients versus just being all cream cheese with pieces of crab in it. Moo Ping, oh my. This pork skewer is full of flavor, a sweet/peppery/tender/grilled piece of heaven (5 sticks per order). It's served with this sauce that adds some extra spice, since I'm not a fan of heat I pass on the sauce and just eat it with rice. When my friend tried to Moo Ping one day, she actually cried (no joke) from how delicious it was! Tiger Cry, seriously, they need to make this into an entree because the appetizer portion just leaves you wanting more. It is a beef tendorloin marinated in something delicious and so tender. It's served with a spicy, tangy, salty sauce (same as the Moo Ping sauce) but I again, choose to leave it in it's natural state and eat it with rice. The egg drop soup is absolutely not your typical egg drop soup. I came with my friend who ordered this, I actually gave her a judging look...egg drop soup? Really? Well, am I glad she ordered this. It was the best egg drop soup I've ever had! It's very brothy with a garlicky flavor (so no corn starch to give it that thickness) and the egg is more solid, you actually have to bite into it. The best part is the ground pieces of chicken in the soup! The combination of this, topped off with cilantro is just amazing.

As for the dishes, well you can't go wrong with the Pad Thai, but my preference is the Pad See-Iew with the tofu. This is a thick rice noodle dish in a sweet soy sauce gravy with Chinese Broccoli. I'm not huge on tofu, but I am addicted to the tofu in this dish. They can't put enough tofu in it!

I would definitely recommend this...

Worst place to go with a big family during a weekend. A while back, I decided to take my family of 11 here for a celebratory dinner. We reserved a table and got seated right away but the real nightmare began after we placed our orders. I knew exactly what we wanted so we placed our orders within 5 minutes of being seated and the food took over an hour to arrive at our table... on top of that everything came out at completely different time frames so there was some of us who had food and others who had to keep waiting. Any restaurant that serves a huge family should know how important it is for all the orders to come out in a timely matter so that everyone can dig in not just stare at each other and wait because only 3 dishes come out every 10 minutes AFTER waiting for one hour out of a total of 20 dishes. In the end we had to take 4 dishes to go because they just never came out on time and my family was fed up with this place and ready to leave on empty stomachs. They were prioritizing take out and food delivery orders because the kitchen was pumping out so much food just not ours even though we ordered ahead of everyone else. Our server apologized and gave us 10% off which really didn’t make up for the embarrassment of me giving my family the worst celebratory dinner ever by deciding to dine here instead of somewhere else. My bill came out to about $380 in total and there was an 23% tip automatically added which amounted another $90. I thought gratuity on parties of 5 or more is 18% and that what it states on their menu but they charged us more for terrible service. It is sad but I think the kitchen and servers did not care about my family and I that night because they knew they would get a big tip no matter what so they completely disregarded us. Worst decision ever of deciding to bring my family here to...

I remember seeing Opart Thai recommended by multiple people as their favorite Thai spot in Chicago and do I get it now. We had a tremendous dinner here and every single plate was cleared.

We had the papaya salad, larb gai, and nam tok. Their spice scale runs from 1 to 7 and we ordered everything at a level 6. Everything was proper spicy. The authentic Thai heat cleared our sinuses in the best way possible. The side of lettuce served with each dish offered a crisp, cooling contrast from the heat and intense flavors.

The papaya salad was a bit sweet for my taste but it was still refreshingly bright. The strands of papaya were at a great spot where it had soaked up all the sauce while still retaining their crunch. The larb was fantastic: such a light dish yet it carried so many bold and complex flavors. But nothing could have prepared me for the Nam Tok. The beef was unbelievably tender, juicy, and had a fantastic smoky char. Drenched in a sauce that perfectly balanced tangy lime, salty fish sauce, fresh herbs, and a generous hit of toasted rice powder, it was a full-on flavor bomb. Every bite was bright, savory, and deeply satisfying. Very few dishes have ever hit my palate quite like this one.

You could get pad Thai anywhere but you should be ordering off the beaten path here, they knock it out of the park. This is one of those places where going beyond the classic options pays...