The Mom and the Goat

Back in November, my younger sister Susie went online to make a reservation at The Girl and the Goat, the new restaurant from Stephanie Izard (Top Chef Season 4), and ended up booking a table for 5 at 8:30 on Friday, February 11. That's how long it took to get a decent time on a weekend night! By the time February rolled around, Susie and Sean could no longer go, and Betsy had decided to go to India for work, so Jason and I happily took over the reservation and invited our friends Justin and Kristie to join.

I'm not going to say that Jason and I are "foodies," but we do love trying new restaurants and we definitely appreciate interesting cuisine. Our opportunities to venture out to the hot new Chicago restaurants have become somewhat limited now that Molly is around, so this reservation was a big deal. Big. Deal. Hiring a babysitter kind of big deal. But The Girl and the Goat did not disappoint! We ordered way too much food, spent way too much money, probably drank too much craft beer and good wine, and definitely enjoyed every single second of it.

I'm including a link to the full menu, but here's a list of what we ordered. It's a "shared plates" type of restaurant (think Tapas), so while it looks like an obscene amount of food for 4 people, the portions are small, and each person only gets a few bites of each.

The O'Grady/Tauber and the Goat experience:

• Bread with duck fat butter and pomegranate compote
• Wood fired oysters with horseradish aioli
• Fried cheese curds in some kind of tasty goodness
• Chickpea fritters with hazelnut hummus and goat feta
• Squash ravioli with mushroom raisin ragout, brussel sprouts, and creme fraiche (This was a total stand-out. There was something really sweet and wonderful about the sauce)
• Seared scallops with goat sausage, white shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, and winter squash
• Calamari stuffed with lamb sausage and sweetbreads
• Goat masala pizza with farm cheese and yogurt
• Goat, pork, and veal with pappardelle pasta and rosemary
• Roasted pig face with a sunny side egg, cilantro, and potato stix (Yes, I ate a dish called "pig face." I do not know what part of the face it was, but I ate it, loved it, and asked no questions)
• And for dessert...pork fat donuts in a semi-frozen sesame custard with pineapple chunks

Yum yum yum. I'm glad we loved it so much because we have another reservation set for the end of April, when Betsy, Susie, and Sean will be able to join!