Chicago Eats - Girl & the Goat Part II

Following up on my post on the first time I went to Girl & the Goat back in May (but written a week ago), here's a quick post on my second visit to the Goat. Quick summary if you just want to look at the pics and not my words: it was just as good as the last time, and service continued to be excellent.

I went with the sis this time around, so we weren't able to eat as many dishes since we were two instead of four. But that's ok, I had a pretty heavy week of gorging myself on delicious eats, so maybe it was a good thing that I didn't stuff even more food down my gullet as per usual. BONUS: our server Jodi (I think) told us that Stephanie's absence was due to her competing on Iron Chef America this past weekend! The show should air in September; I'm excited to watch her, and hopefully she picks Bobby Flay so I can watch the Goat slay Flay. Onto delicious food pics.

bloody mary bread

 We started with the bloody mary bread, which as you can guess was a tomato based bread that was quite delicious. The spreads were designed to make everything taste like a bloody mary; I think that it tasted like a delicious bready tomato, and I had no complaints. Bread disappeared pretty quickly.

sauteed green beans w/fish sauce

Everyone that has tried these has stated how remarkable they are. How can something as simple and green like these beans be so delicious? Well, they're amazing. My sister generally doesn't care to eat the last bite, but she asked if she could eat the rest of these up. Served on top of a fish sauce vinaigrette and topped with a fish sauce aioli, the dish also included some cashews to balance out the saltiness of the dual-fishy sauces. Note to all of those scared of these because of the fish sauce: the vinaigrette/aioli had the right bits of savoriness and umami like characteristics that transformed simple, everyday green beans into the highlight of a meal and reminded me why Girl & the Goat requires reservations months in advance. Except when you get lucky like I did as I was able to catch a reservation on the Wednesday before the Friday night we ate here.

seared tuna w/lamb sausage

Funny story; I went to lunch with a friend earlier in the day and we were both looking at the seared tuna sandwich. She was however a bit hesitant; she wasn't quite sure if it was ok to eat seared tuna since it was raw in the middle. I asked if she ate sushi and she enthusiastically responded "Yes!" I gave her a blank stare and she finally got it. To conclude, seared tuna is safe to eat.

Nothing particularly special about the seared tuna itself as it was as good as you expect seared tuna to be from a place like this. Alone, it was good but not memorable; combined with the lamb sausage and blueberries, it gave it a completely different taste and showcased why it's on the menu. To be honest, the strong salty flavor of the lamb sausage really overpowered the taste of the tuna; perhaps this dish was meant to showcase the texture of the various elements, and the tuna was used to cut through the saltiness of said lamb? Either way, the dish was salty, sweet, and savory in all the right ways.

squash blossom rangoon w/crab

Take your classic crab rangoon and run it through the Stephanie Izard flavor machine and out comes squash blossom rangoon. And what an interesting creation this is. IMO, the chive yogurt was mostly unnecessary given that the rangoon filling was fairly rich on its own, but this was a pretty solid dish. The use of the soft squash went well with everything else. You basically bite through layers; crunchy/crispiness gives way to the soft yet firm squash, and finally the crab filling oozes out like you expect it to. Highly recommended.

fried soft shell crab

I had the soft-shell crab the last time I was here, but it was used in a different presentation. Admittedly, the last soft shell crab dish I had from the Goat was tastier because of the sauce it was bathed in. I don't remember tasting the pickled onion-like ramps and the zucchini was fairly bland, as zucchini usually is. The chili-lime sauce was good, but there didn't seem to be enough of it to go with the amount of crab on the dish. My least favorite of the night, overshadowed by the pure awesomeness of the soft shell crab I had the first time.

strawberry spongecake

I was never really a fan of desserts back in the day. Now, I can't help but to look forward to them. We opted to go for the strawberry spongecake this time. This was far superior to any spongecake I had ever had, given all of the layers of flavors and textures. From the top - a fried(?) basil leaf, basil cream, strawberries, sponge, and finally lime curd all the way at the bottom with sprinklings of crushed graham cracker throughout. Our server recommended that we get a bit of everything in one bit to get all of the flavors to mix together. Yep, that did the trick; this thing was awesome. The cream was heavy enough to stand up against the other parts of the dish (no wimpy whipped cream here folks), the strawberries were sweet and the sponge was perfectly spongy. But the thing that really made this dish come together was the lime curd at the bottom. It was zesty and tart, and balanced well against the rest of the dessert. Can you now see why I get excited about dessert?

All in all, another great trip to the Girl & the Goat. Try to go, but be warned - I'll be fighting you for those reservations.