GIRL AND THE GOAT - CHICAGO FOODVENTURE

I highly recommend when you are in Chicago, Girl and The Goat - Executive Chef, Stephanie Izard "Top Chef" season 4 winner.

It’s ABC – Amazing, Bold and Complex!!! That’s how I would describe Girl and the Goat. It was well worth it.

We had an early reservation but arrived 30 minutes early just to peruse the restaurant. I already liked the restaurant from the façade, the open kitchen and the lengthy bar and the warm welcome we received from the staff. Oh and we enjoyed reading the “goat messages” on the back of the staff’s uniform. Patrick our wait staff was friendly and very knowledgeable about the menu. The menu were divided into three sections, vegetables, fish and meat. We decided to order one from each section. One from each would suffice since each serving is meant to be shared.

We started with bread fresh from the oven. Nutty Apple Smack, it was crusty on the outside and moist in the inside, w/ apple butter sauce and lemon mayo cream. It was delicious!!!

Our first course, Patrick’s recommendation, the sautéed green beans with fish sauce vinaigrette and cashews. I’m not a fan of green beans but this was amazing. The green beans and the vinaigrette were a perfect combination. Thank you Patrick…we enjoyed this dish.

Next course was my daughter’s choice, grilled baby octopus with guanciale, lemon-pistachio vinaigrette cooked with fava beans and colored waxed beans. This was another winner!!

And the piece de resistance……. Wood oven roasted pig face! (WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART). This was served roulade /disc style with cilantro tamarind sauce, potato sticks and topped with a sunny side up egg. I love this dish, it reminds me of a Filipino dish- sisig. Although, I would like to have some pickled vegetables on the side to balance the texture and rich flavor of the pig and the egg.

By this time you would think we were already stuffed, wrong, we made sure we still had room for the whimsical desserts! My daughter and I ordered two kinds of dessert. First, the corn nougat served on a mason jar. It was fun digging through the jar trying to decipher what was in it. The corn nougat had layers of sweet corn ice cream, apricot plum jam and sprinkled with bacon goodness.

The second dessert, we had the goat cheese bavaroise, served in a crock. The amalgamation of the blueberries, the cake and the brown sugar were ridiculously delicious.

Now that’s a dessert!!!

Now it was time for the bill, not bad, it was reasonable considering how many items we had ordered. Price ranged from $6 to $18.


Kudos to Chef Stephanie, her kitchen staff and the wait staff. It was worth the hype. We will definitely be back and hopefully will get to meet Chef Stephanie next time.

So, now you know why it’s ABC. The food were amazing, they were bold and complex which we loved.