Girl & the Goat

We went to dinner with some friends at Girl and the Goat.  This is a newer trendy restaurant in the west loop area of Chicago.  It was opened less than 2 years ago by Stephanie Izard, the season 4 winner of Top Chef.  It has been very popular since it opened and you have to make reservations very far in advance; in fact we made reservations about 2 1/2 months ago for a Monday evening to enable us to eat a "normal" 7:30pm time.  During the week you probably can walk in when they open at 4:30pm and be okay, but who is ready and able to eat out at 4:30.  We also noticed a lounge and bar area where you could eat as well without reservations.

Inside the Restaurant

This restaurant is a small plates concept, much like a tapas restaurant, just with American dishes instead.  Since we went out to eat with another couple we got to sample even more of the small plates.  They had been to the restaurant before so we also were the beneficiaries of the previous experience.  One of our friends has a gluten allergy and this restaurant was more than willing to accommodate this issue.

Girl and the goat changes some of their dishes on a daily basis including their breads.  We ordered potato bread and pretzel bread and our friend ordered gluten free bread.  All of the breads were small round loaves (the size of a softball) and came with various butters and spreads.  We tasted the potato bread and the pretzel bread; the pretzel bread was the clear winner but all of the spreads that accompanied the breads were very good.

Potato Bread

Pretzel Bread

Grilled Broccoli

The main menu is broken into 3 sections - vegetables, meat and fish. For vegetables, we were able to sample 5 different dishes:
- Wood grilled Broccoli with smokey bleu cheese
- Roasted Cauliflower with pickled peppers, pine nuts and mint
- Artichoke heart sofrito with almond-goat cheese agnolotti (kind of like a ravioli)
- Pan fried Shishito peppers with parmesan, sesame and miso
- Warm marinated olives

Roasted Cauliflower

Artichoke with agnolotti

Pan Fried Shishito Peppers

Warm Olives

If we could eat vegetable dishes like this all of the time, we would definitely become vegetarians.  Probably our 2 favorites were the broccoli and the cauliflower.  They were both served with accompaniments that enhanced the dishes.  Nick enjoyed the smokey flavor of the broccoli and Natalie liked the interesting combination of the the cauliflower with the pine nuts and mint.  The peppers were a little spicy for the women at the table.  Nick doesn't normally like olives but he said if all olives could taste like the warm marinated olives he would be eating them more often.  The artichoke dish was good but there was a higher pasta to artichoke ratio than we anticipated.

Goat Empanadas

From the Meat and Fish categories we ordered the following:
- Goat empanadas, these were actually on the daily specials menu, but sometimes are on the regular menu
- Goat sausage pizza with ricotta cheese
- Scallops with asparagus and bok choy
- Skate with sunchokes, grapefruit, olive and crisp lentils

Scallops 

Goat Sausage Pizza

Skate

We were glad to order the goat dishes for the namesake of the restaurant and in fact Nick's favorite dish of the evening was the goat empanadas. They were warm and fluffy and he said "wow" when he took his first taste. The pizza was a traditional style small pizza with chunks of ricotta and a healthy portion of goat sausage. The scallops were very good, but just not as memorable as some of the other dishes.  We were a little reluctant to order skate with grapefruit as we didn't know how the combination would be, but the baking process brought out the natural sugars of the grapefruit and the citrus flavors enhanced the butteriness of the fish.

Goat Cheesecake

For dessert we ordered gingerbread cake and goat cheesecake.  The gingerbread cake came with cranberry-orange sorbet, caramel, orange creme and candied ginger. We're not super gingerbread fans in general but this combination of flavors was very intriguing. There were lots of strong flavors with the sorbet, the caramel and the ginger but they harmonized into an excellent dessert.  The ginger left your tongue tingling.  The goat cheesecake came with a hazelnut crunch, candied beets and cajeta (a caramelized milk sauce).  The beets may sound off-putting to some people, but if you didn't know they were beets they just tasted like sugared candy. The cheesecake was very smooth and creamy and it was a little sweeter being made with goat cheese instead of cream cheese.

Final thoughts on Girl and the Goat:

Gingerbread Cake

Food - all of the dishes were very good; there were no disappointing disappointments.  There are some dishes on the menu with ingredients that are unfamiliar sounding so just ask your server if you have questions. One of the dishes we did not order (but we know lots of people do) is called wood oven roasted pig face.  We didn't order it because it comes with a sunny side egg - which Nick has an aversion to. But all in all they vegetable dishes were the best.  We would love to return to this restaurant, but the popularity and reservation wait times make it inconvenient for last minute planning (plan way in advance).
Service - There was a little confusion when we were seated, because we were taken to a table for 6 and then we were told we had to get up and move (we think they thought we were the party of 6).  The wait staff was very good about clearing dishes and bringing fresh plates out.  There was a mishap with water being spilled in Natalie's lap but all of the staff showed a lot of concern (i.e. the restaurant manager came over) and we had one of the small plates comped.
Atmosphere - fun, energetic atmosphere; it can get a little loud due to loud music and a large open room.  It seemed like a very "metro cool" place to be. There was a large painting with a girl and a goat that reminded Nick of the Grateful Dead.