Two days of awesome Asian meals in a row! This afternoon we headed into Chicago to have dinner with the newly betrothed Kim and Paul, who took us to Opart Thai in Lincoln Square for dinner.

Opart has a number of things going for it: it’s BYOB, it’s affordable, and it’s supposed to be one of the best Thai places in the city. These more than make up for the fact that we weren’t sure how to pronounce its name: is it Au Pair? Op-art? Opart? I’ll tell you what it is: tasty.

I tend to go for the old familiars when ordering Thai: Pad See Ew, Tom Ka Gai, or Pad Thai. After yesterday’s success at trying something new, however, I ordered the Miang Sa-Wan which, coincidentally, sounded the most like Shane’s lunch from yesterday. It was an awful lot like it, except that instead of crunchy-crispy rice, it had peanuts, hot peppers, and a lot of lime to compliment the cured pork. Shane opted for the Gaeng PIa Dook – a catfish red curry – which I didn’t try, as I was already pushing the limits of ingestion with my dish and the crab rangoon that we split.

But the best part? The fact that from the time we sat down until we left – heck, basically the entire 12 hours we were awake in Chicago – we barely stopped talking except to catch a breath.