I had a disappointing meal here last wk. I'd never been and was downtown after seeing El Bulli @ the Siskel Film Center so i walked over to try something new. I respect Stephanie very much, loved Scylla and have many colleagues that make it a point to eat here when they come into town. I ordered 3 dishes, gr broccoli w/rogue creamery blue (excellent), a soft shell dish so thick w/breading it was devoid of crab flavor, and a goat confit so over salted that when asked why I left 1/2 of it I told them of the salt situation. That prompted another dish that they comped, some frog legs in a sauce also so salty it was left mainly uneaten. I drank @ least 3 full glasses of water while there to counteract my food as my lips were literally tingling and engorged. I woke up for water a few times during the night as well. Really wanted to love it, but outside of the people watching in a beautiful room, I'd have a rough time going back.

Jazzfood wrote:I had a disappointing meal here last wk. I'd never been and was downtown after seeing El Bulli @ the Siskel Film Center so i walked over to try something new. I respect Stephanie very much, loved Scylla and have many colleagues that make it a point to eat here when they come into town. I ordered 3 dishes, gr broccoli w/rogue creamery blue (excellent), a soft shell dish so thick w/breading it was devoid of crab flavor, and a goat confit so over salted that when asked why I left 1/2 of it I told them of the salt situation. That prompted another dish that they comped, some frog legs in a sauce also so salty it was left mainly uneaten. I drank @ least 3 full glasses of water while there to counteract my food as my lips were literally tingling and engorged. I woke up for water a few times during the night as well. Really wanted to love it, but outside of the people watching in a beautiful room, I'd have a rough time going back.

Just when I thought maybe it was safe to return, my first time was Feb. 2011 for my birthday & everything was overly salted, except dessert. Went in May 2011 & mentioned the salt issue & the food was lovely.

Wife and I had a very nice dinner at Girl & the Goat on Saturday night.

The frites were very good, but the portion is ridiculously large for just 2 people. We left at least half of them uneaten. Would order again if I was there with a larger group. All of the other dishes were absolutely delicious. The chicken dish especially stood out. It's such a simple preparation, but the flavors were phenomenal.

Ham Frites w/Smoked Tomato Aioli & Cheddar Beer Sauce


Goat Loin with Summer Squash, Zucchini and Grape Tomato Ratatouille with Tarragon Sauce


Wood Fired Chicken w/ Naan Bread and Heirloom Tomatoes


Tempura Fried Pickles with Yuzu Harissa & Scallion Aioli


Grilled Broccoli with Rogue's Smokey Bleu & Spiced Crispies


Zucchini Cake with Lemon Eggplant Mascapone and Tomato Caramel

We had another great meal here last week. I've come to realize that 4-5 dishes is the max that a 2-top can order, without exploding.

This time, I oohed and aahed over the wood fired broccoli, tossed in blue cheese. The hiramasa crudo with crisp pork belly, chili aioli, and caperberries was also perfect. Refreshing, with a bit of fat from the pork and heat from the chile peppers. Also tried the diver scallops with foie gras vinaigrette, klug plums, sweet onion, and brioche crouton. A wonderful melding of flavors, with sweet and meaty scallops.

The crisp braised pork shank with spring onion kimchee and buttermilk dressing was also genius. Served with pita bread, the combination of the white dressing, spicy kimchee, and pork reminded me of halal cart food in NYC! Spicy and creamy sauces, mixing together. However, no halal cart serves pork...

And we stuffed ourselves with the goat belly with bourbon butter, lobster, crab, and fennel. The sweet bourbon butter was delicious, I joked that this was our dessert. And it kind of was, since we had no room left.

It's good to see that in over a year since my last visit, not much has changed at Girl and the Goat. We had a fantastic dinner despite waiting 45 minutes for two seats at the bar to open up after 9:00 on a weekday night (pro tip - the lower seats to the left as you enter are first come first serve AND communal - realized after we got our bar seats).

We started with the rye with smoked salmon butter. While good, it was wasted stomach space that could have been used by something more delicious from other parts of the menu.

Following the bread were the shishito peppers. I could have eaten two more bowls of these by myself. They had some miso and parmesan tossed in for a big punch of umami before getting some sweet and spice from the peppers.

Dmnkly wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Grave regrets: we forgot to order the Pan Fried Shishitos (a type of pepper that is sporadically hot, that I don’t think I’ve ever had)

FYI, in my experience, shishitos are pretty much universally hot (I mean not hot, but not a lot of variation). Are you thinking of Padrón peppers, or do I not know my shishitos?

And as for the spice, both Wikipedia and the orders I’ve had at G&G and Three Aces in the last week agree with the ~1/10 being hot thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishito

After the peppers we had the broccoli pictured above. It was delicious, but I think I prefer the cauliflower preparation slightly more. The textural crunch from the crispies was nice and there was some spice to the broccoli as well, but my wife thought it a touch too salty. I was fine with the seasoning.

Last but certainly not least, was the pork shank:

kathryn wrote:The crisp braised pork shank with spring onion kimchee and buttermilk dressing was also genius. Served with pita bread, the combination of the white dressing, spicy kimchee, and pork reminded me of halal cart food in NYC! Spicy and creamy sauces, mixing together.

What she said. Holy cow, this was genius. My wife does not care for meat off the bone, but was scarfing this down. I was tempted to drink the kimchee sauce. It was like the best buffalo sauce you’ve never had. If Chef has the recipe in her cookbook, I’ll buy it for this sauce alone. And the shank was perfectly executed with a wonderfully crispy exterior covering some exceptionally moist shank meat.

It’s unfortunate it’s so hard to get into Girl & the Goat, but it’s not getting by on Izard’s name alone; the kitchen continues to expertly execute creative and delicious dishes to the constantly packed house, which makes it worth the wait when you have the time.

Four of us dined at GatG prior to "Book of Mormon" last night. SueF and I were extremely pleased, our companions a little less so.
We had a 4:30 reservation, and stretched dinner out to about 6:45 prior to a 7:30 showtime.

Cocktails:

• Best of Three - something with pimms and cucumber. I had a taste, it was fine but not to my preference
• Tempest - sort of a deep-spiced Dark and Stormy with strong allspice notes (others in our company called it piney or cough-syrup-like, but I really liked this)
• A malbec and a cab, neither of which I tasted

First round:

• Fatbread with duck butter and cherry compote. Wow, that's a great bread. The duck fat butter is a great enhancer of the already rich bread.
• Goat Empanadas: Crisp, filled with succulent braised goat, one of the hits of the night
• Shishito peppers with miso and parmesan: A generous serving, and while tasty, I felt like I'd have been happier with fewer of these and more of...
• Chickpea Fritters: Two delicate, fluffy crisp fritters that couldn't be more unlike a falafel. Nice sauce of apples and tomatillos.
• Octopus: Tender-chewy tentacles perfectly seasoned

Second round:

• Wood roasted pig face with fried egg: Definitely the place's signature dish. I did not find it too sweet -- currently they're using a tamarind-maple sauce, which was pretty subtle. Rich meat (the egg is perhaps gilding the lily) that's just what you want in pork
• Chicken with harissa, an aioli of some sort and fried pickles. Not one of the hits. Nothing wrong, but didn't feel as finished of a dish. The pickles (which should be on the V(egetables) part of the menu by itself, didn't seem to go with the chicken. I prefer crispy skin on birds, but this was very succulent.
• Shrimp: No memory at all of what this was served with, but the shrimp were perfect
• Sugo: Mixed braised meats with papardelle. Outstanding, but no "pop" to this (except for the gooseberries, which I thought were a little strange). Perfect pasta.

Dessert:

• Bittersweet Chocolate Cake with Shiitake ice cream: The cake was very dense and crumbly, somewhere between an extra-cocoa Oreo and a "dirt cup" you'd get in a family restaurant in the 90's on the kid's menu. The dirt cup feeling was enhanced by the earthiness of the shiitake ice cream. Just fantastic.
• Sticky date cake: I'm not a fan of sticky toffee pudding, which this seemed to be based on, just because it's so cloyingly sweet, but this had royales of grapefruit and a grapefruit sorbet, which definitely elevated this dish.

Two beverages each (alchoholic before, coffee or tea afterward), eight items, one bread and two desserts got us out at $260 total with tax and tip. I might have ordered a little lighter -- we stacked some big guns up at the end and we were pretty stuffed.

Jazzfood wrote:I had a disappointing meal here last wk. I'd never been and was downtown after seeing El Bulli @ the Siskel Film Center so i walked over to try something new. I respect Stephanie very much, loved Scylla and have many colleagues that make it a point to eat here when they come into town. I ordered 3 dishes, gr broccoli w/rogue creamery blue (excellent), a soft shell dish so thick w/breading it was devoid of crab flavor, and a goat confit so over salted that when asked why I left 1/2 of it I told them of the salt situation. That prompted another dish that they comped, some frog legs in a sauce also so salty it was left mainly uneaten. I drank @ least 3 full glasses of water while there to counteract my food as my lips were literally tingling and engorged. I woke up for water a few times during the night as well. Really wanted to love it, but outside of the people watching in a beautiful room, I'd have a rough time going back.

I had a pre-Blackhawks game meal here Wednesday, and thanks to the weather that had everyone in fear, there were a lot of cancellations and we had no issue grabbing a table. This was my second visit - and though I enjoyed the meal, I'll echo some of what you said Alan. First, I loved Scylla when it was open -- can't recall anything but outstanding meals there. At Girl & the Goat, I wonder whether instead of her just having her menu with her food, she's going a bit overboard to impress or feeling the need to live up to some reputation or whether it's just a little bit harder to maintain quality control.

I say this because I had the same soft shell crab dish and experienced the same issues. Calling it tempura-style does not provide the excuse to smother the crab in thick tempura batter. The best tempura has a thin, grease-less crust. This crust was so thick that half of the serving was crust. I'll contrast that with a very lightly battered soft shell crab I enjoyed at Piccolo Sogno Due the week before.

The pig face dish I enjoyed so much my first visit (didn't recall I had this until looking back at my prior comments) was overly sweet on this visit. I don't mind a hint of sweetness in a savory dish, but I don't want maple syrup poured over my sausage/bacon either.

There was a perfectly cooked piece of salmon, but there were so many elements to the salmon's accompaniments, which were served to the side as if not meant to be eaten together, such that I ultimately liked the dish but not much more than that.

There was a decent but unmemorable chickpea fritter dish too.

The one dish I absolutely loved was the crispy pork shank, which was pretty much perfect in all respects. It was served on, but falling off, the bone. Crispy skin, tender underneath, and great flavor. There were two accompanying sauces I don't recall two well - one was white and seemed yogurt based with a light tang, the other a red, slightly spicy sauce - but both worked very well with the pork.

So unfortunately, as everyone clamors to get in to Girl & the Goat, I can say I enjoyed the meal, but it's Scylla (probably along with Mado) that I miss so badly.

I plan to take my family here for my wife's birthday. I know it's not the most kid friendly joint. Kids are 11 & 13 and well behaved and I was wondering if there'd be any issues.

You'll be fine, although if you plan to go after 9 pm on a weekend night, you may be a bit uncomfortable. If you go earlier during the week (or even on the weekend), you shouldn't have any issues.

Weeknight before 6...otherwise 9:30 was the next open time.

Is it anyway possible to make the reservation between 6-8PM? No matter how far down the calendar on OpenTable, it's either early or late dinner only.

Pretty sure that's because those are the only reservations they release to Open Table. Try calling the restaurant for more options.

jayrech wrote:Is it anyway possible to make the reservation between 6-8PM? No matter how far down the calendar on OpenTable, it's either early or late dinner only.

I believe they open reservations online three months out, but take phone reservations six months out.

I remember calling for a reservation about 5 1/2 months (for a group of six though), and my options were 6:30 pm and earlier and after 10 pm.

This was a year ago, but I was able to book a 7:30 reservation online three months in advance. Has it really gotten that much more popular in that span?

If you have 2-5 people or so, it's actually pretty easy to walk in and get seating in the bar area which is full service. The bar accomodates 30-40 people and there's a section upfront that has couch seating, so it's almost like sitting at a table. The smaller the group, the easier and broader range of times you can just walk in, especially during the week. Bar has a decent turnover since it's either folks ordering drinks while waiting for a table or a small party having dinner. If you're a larger group, get there early and you shouldn't have a problem with getting bar seating. If it doesn't work out, there's plenty of other places nearby - though some will have long wait times. If you're there early though, something will work out.

Girl and the Goat is a perfectly good (though not extraordinary by any stretch) restaurant. IMHO, and with respect, any wait over a week for a rez is ridiculous in terms of quality (not demand).

809 W Randolph St
Chicago, IL 60607

http://www.girlandthegoat.com/
(312) 492-6262

It was kind of an accident how I ended up at this restaurant.. I was in Chicago last week meeting one of my better customers.. We have a common interest in Food and we often meet at fun restaurants.. The last time we were in Chicago together, we ended up dining at Alinea. so,when he scheduled a meeting with me, i found myself scrambling for a place.. I sent him a few options and he sent back that the Girl and the Goat Sounded terrific and he wanted to see if I could get the seats that looked into the kitchen. But, the whole time we were discussing Girl and The Goat, I for some reason thought it was Schwa. I thought Girl and the Goat was Schwa for some reason and have never heard of the Girl and The Goat but, because he was so excited and the kitchen gave us those cool seats, we were locked in.

Regular Menu:




Daily Specials and Special Goat Menu




The meal was pretty great.. What made it for us was the seating and the service.. our waitress was amazing.. She was one of the best waitresses I have had.. She made the night.. From giving us half orders of things, to tastes from the kitchen, to giving one of every dessert on the house.. It was really a treat.

We started with the oysters:

First the fried, then two more.. I am reading the menu and they come four to an order.. We somehow had 3 oysters per person, three different styles.

First fried oysters: these were great. fried oyster with some cold yolk and fried caper. it was really nice.



Then the roasted and the mignonette



Goat Carpaccio: smoked trout roe was a nice touch.. It was good..



The bread their is delicious.. Here the bread came with pickled pepper and butter.. It was so delicious


Octopus, guanciale, beans, pistachios, brussel spout leaves and a nice acidic dressing



Fried duck tongues.. These were "boneless" or cartilage-less, little fried crispy nuggets.. really nice.



Just to show you where we were sitting, we were like right there..



They have this huge wood burning grill and a wood burning oven and just lots of burners and deep fryers, all raging.. All of their burners were turned all the way up.. I started dinner in a few layers and ended dinner wearing a tshirt.



The waitress brought over these fried crumpets..Just bread fried in a pork fat. They were super porky. Served with a goat liver mousse that was delicious, pickled mushrooms and apple butter



Wood fired broccoli..

I don't think we ordered these



Branzino:



Green beans:



Pig face, topped with potato straws, topped with a fried egg.. There was a green sauce and a maple sauce and a wine reduction.. This was really, really outrageously good and heavy and just delicious.




Finally, she gave us every dessert on the menu..



It was just so much fun between the seats and the over eating and the nice waitress.. We had a really lovely time. .Ended with a whiskey or two.

Nice post, Daniel! Thanks for the front row seat.

Five years since the last post?! Had Stephanie Izard's shine dulled?

For whatever reason, I had never been. And daughter's BDay was upon us. So we did a walk-in when they opened at 4:30 on a Sunday. Was first in line outside at 4:00, secured a table facing the open kitchen with the caveat that we had to be out by 6:00. OK, let's do it.

I'll just list pics/descriptions of a few of the highlights, but suffice to say there wasn't a true miss in the bunch. Chef is still on her game. Small tasting plates that easily satiated 4 of us, and we ordered 9 courses, then dessert. Fine meal!

My wife and I ate at GandtG earlier this year and really loved it. We hadn't been in a long time, but had a gift certificate that prodded to give it a go. We showed up around 7pm on a Saturday night and got two empty seats at the bar. We had a nice conversation with the bar tenders, who also suggested that they could make half-orders of a number of the dishes, allowing us to sample more.

jnm123 wrote:Five years since the last post?! Has Stephanie Izard's shine dulled?

Glad to hear the quality is still there. Re the lack of buzz: Is it now possible to reserve a table at a normal-ish dinner hour with a more reasonable lead time? (I.e., is it no longer the case that the only table available will be at 5 PM three months from now?)

I got absolutely nowhere using Open Table, even for a 5:00 or 5:30 res on a weekend night, out the next 3 months. I suppose I could've called but screw it, I said--we made a solid reservation for 4:45 yesterday at Cabra, Izard's Peruvian restaurant across Randolph and around the corner, which we would cancel if we got in to GandtheG for a 4:30 walk-in, which we did and I was thrilled the place lived up to the original billing.

I could give two you-know-whats about the buzz. They were efficient, the waitstaff kept us totally paced on the 90-minute clock, which I have to tell you is the way to go. You pay attention, you eat, you drink, you laugh, you take a few pics, then you get the hell out of there.

Oh--checking out past menus & pics upthread, it was cool that the broccoli was still there, because it was one of the real highlights. Crunchy/firm, smoky, with mild bleu cheese & the krispies. Pretty simple, and stellar.

Someone said the wood-roasted pig face is off the menu? I thought this was one of their signature dishes. Is it seasonal?

It was on the menu when we visited earlier this year and it's on the on-line menu now.

Darren72 wrote:It was on the menu when we visited earlier this year and it's on the on-line menu now.

Phew! Thanks!