Girl And The Goat In Chicago

As we waited for our table to be ready, it was not a complete shock that we bumped into two Philadelphia friends at the end of their Little Goat diner dinner across the street. Random, yes. Fun, also yes. Shocking, no.

Thanks to television and the internet, all informed travelers now seem bound for the same destinations. In this case, Randolph Street and Izard’s city block in particular.

Though tempted to stay at Little Goat, we traveled back across the street, claimed our table and ordered a selection of small plates. Most of the plates were hits, though a couple were misses.

Here’s a round-up of the hits:

We were intrigued to try the ravioli uniquely filled with escargots. The Girl and The Goat dish proves that escargot and ravioli were born to live together.

In this dish, the textures of soft, silky pasta and crunchy fried shallots happily co-exist. The snail-snuffed pasta and the savory sauce with flavors of bacon and tamarind made us want more once the plate was empty.

We knew that we should try a goat dish at a restaurant called Girl and The Goat. Plus, we wanted to check out the goat locally sourced from Kilgus Farm.

The carpaccio was a good choice, with its complex flavors and mixed textures. The thinly sliced goat meat’s slightly earthy, gamey flavors were enhanced by the other ingredients, especially the salty capers.

This fresh-made, cleverly-named bread was well worth the $4 charge. The crunchy rye was served with two sides, a smoked salmon spread and a pepito salad. We slathered the flavorful sides on to the slices until the loaf was gone.

For a minute, we thought about ordering more bread. Sanity ruled and we stopped with the one order.

Jacques Torres famously opined “Life is short. Eat dessert first.” Although we ended our meal with the budino, it was the best dish of the meal.

The dessert, which includes a myriad of ingredients like miso butterscotch, candied cashews, pineapple, bacon toffee and cashew cake, was so delicious that we ate took turns eating it until the plate was empty.

Sweet yet salty. Soft yet crunchy. The miso-butterscotch budino can best be summed up as perfect.

Overall, our dinner at Girl and The Goat was an excellent re-introduction to the vibrant Chicago food scene. We got our first taste of the seasonal ingredients and creative cookery that are prevalent throughout the city.

We ended the meal by walking over to nearby Avec for nightcaps. A toast was in order – we were finally back in Chicago!

Girl & The Goat is located at 809 W Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60607, United States.

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