Girl and The Goat Review: Awesome meal at Girl and The Goat
The thing about going to Chicago for one single meal is that most minds turn to Alinea or Next. Those are probably great choices. The only thing is, Alinea is CRAZY expensive of an experience (though I’m sure super worth it for foodies/foodists). And Next is pretty hard to get tickets for exactly the moment you visit Chicago. We ended up with Girl and the Goat, an amazing option. For New Yorkers or out of towners, it’s very important to know that while the rule in New York is a 30-day advance reservation, in Chicago there’s no set rule because Girl and the Goat goes out as far as two months. We tried to make a reservation around 40 days in advance and we could only get the very last seating on the night we went.
Girl and the Goat was the first restaurant by Stephanie Izard after winning Top Chef. It’s not a surprise that many tourists would want to visit Girl and the Goat. But the reason that it’s so popular is probably because the food is both affordable and awesome enough to keep the Chicagoans coming back for more. When we went, the restaurant was absolutely packed. And as a New Yorker, the first thing I noticed was just how spacious and big the restaurant was. The Midwest definitely has its perks.
With my friend Patrick joining us, we were able to order more food than normal. The meal started with some escargot ravioli. The few times that I’ve had snails, it’s usually paired with familiar friends like garlic, parsley, and butter. Girl and the Goat goes for a more pure preparation where the snail-y and earthy taste comes through.
We ordered the shishito peppers, which sat underneath a welcoming cover of cheese. I grew up in the Midwest before moving to the South, and my neighbor loved broccoli, as long as it came coupled with velveta. I guess this is the grown-up version of making your vegetables tasty. As it worked back then, it works now, in a more refined manner.
We tried a pork belly dish and I wish the pictures did it more justice, as you can only see the rabbit food on top. This slightly charred and quite delicious.
With a name like Girl and the Goat, ordering a goat dish made sense. We tried the goat liver mousse. It came with some freshly baked pieces of bread that were squishy soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. It went really well with the liver mousse and some of the pickled toppings that also came with the dish.
Under guidance from the server, we went with a roasted cauliflower dish because grown ups eat fiber. As vegetables go, these were alright, although not as fun as the peppers.
We tried more goat and this was one of the best dishes of the night. The protein was meltingly tender and it was nice to get an egg on top. Hard to go wrong with that right?
The Miso-butterscotch budino rounded out the exceptional and quite affordable meal. It came with bacon toffee… All in all, it was a great place to catch up with an old friend, and a tremendous way to start the longest vacation I’ve taken so far. There’s 30 gigs of jpeg+raw files on my computer that needs to be processed. More traveling posts to come in the coming weeks and I’ll try to intersperse with a few NYC posts as well.
Girl and The Goat809 W Randolph St.Chicago, IL 60607312-492-6262