Girl and the Goat-- Chicago - Page 8

Ate at G&G again tonight. Another wonderful dining experience. Excellent lamb shank as well as the whole sea bass. Didn't find the au gratin sweet potatoes to be as good but all of the other selections were very good.

This place deserved a Michelin star - more than Longman & Eagle.

I have enjoyed this thread, but I don't get the hype for G&G.

Last week I was in Chicago and asked my daughter (age 23) to pick a spot for the two of us. She found this place on Urban Spoon. I looked to this forum for more info and read through maybe 5-6pages in this thread.

I called for a table and I was told a table for two would not be available until 10L30 PM; however, if we arrived early (before 6:30) there would be ample space at the bar for full menu service.

I show up at 5, sat at the bar and had a Macallan. She rolls in at 5:45. After seating her at the bar, I get up and ask the maitre d if he might have a table available. He says to give him a moment while he looks through the list. He gives us a table in the window at the front of the restaurant. It was no big deal to him and hilarious to me since this is the restaurant that didn't have a table until 10:30 and yet it was not quite half full.

We chose items that grabbed our fancy: curried cauliflower, green beans, red fish, sausage stuffed calimari, brioche, and finished with the cocoa mini-doughnuts. We drank a few glasses of wine, then she had another cocktail while I had a cappuccino.

Overall this place is just average because its overall self importance is stupefying, and every appetizer and entree we had was overwhelmingly salty. I mean really salty! Even my daughter said salt was the predominant flavor rendering everything one dimensional, except for the dessert. This was unbelievable. The food comes out randomly and there is a long time between the arrival of separate items. The saltiness was intentional; it could not have been an accident due to the length of time between dishes we ordered. I just don't get how a place with such an adoring public could have cooks who don't taste their food, or it could be that the cooks have dead palates.

This seems typical of restaurants where the chef is more celebrity than chef. We should have gone to the Purple Pig.

Fully agree with this assessment of G&TG. The Hype machine really did a bang up job on this one.

+1. We ate there Saturday night and we were all disappointed. As another poster stated, we found the food to be one dimensional.
Also, we had the "no table until 10:30" to deal with also.

A common trick... like long lines outside a half empty night club.

[quote=PorterInjax;3878133Also, we had the "no table until 10:30" to deal with also.[/QUOTE]


What would be the point of this? Isn't it in the restaurant's interest to seat you if they have a table open...unless the kitchen can't handle the demand?

i thoroughly enjoyed my meal there about a month ago. it wasn't the most creative or inspiring food i've ever had but very solid and comforting even.

The perception of overwhelming demand is actually very useful as a marketing tool.

The tables are all still full...you just might not have to wait until 10:30 to actually get a table.

Every table has been taken both times I've been there. As people would leave a table, others were waiting to be seated at it.

Bump, Got a reservation in April since it was the first normal dining time available after 6. Any dishes me and the lady need to try?

I'm going to Chicago in a couple weeks or so. Can I walk in for lunch and get a bar seat without a problem? Or do you have call ahead?