Dinner @ the Girl & the Goat

My birthday dinner was Thursday night, reservations were made 2 months in advance for a 5:15 p.m. dinner for 2 (which eventually was changed to a 5:45 p.m. reservation for 3).

This was our 3rd reservation at this "hot spot" - the other 2 made while I was on maternity leave and never materialized due to "baby pain" and "baby stress"  -- in that order. So Matt surprised me with another reservation I couldn't possibly make an excuse not to keep - my birthday.

My mom joined us and we were happy again to have her because we wouldn't have watched Top Chef if it wasn't for her nagging to us how great it was and telling us in detail about each episode that we decided, we better just watch it with her And we got hooked. And that's who owns this restaurant, the winner of the Season 3 Top Chef. Last year we went to Sprout (another Top Chef contestant's restaurant) and in 2009 we went to Topolobampo and Graham Eliot (Top Chef Masters). We want to keep on doing these dinners, the three of us, but we're running out of Top Cheffers. (Not to fear with the number of great restaurants and chefs in this city, but it was fun to do all the Top Chef people).

Dinner was fabulous, but as I said at one point, "I'm turning too suburban, this is a little adventurous for me." Beef Tongue, Pig Face, lamb tartare ... I'm not that crazy into weird meat cuts.

Matt with the softshell crab, tuna, and asparagus

 The menu was parceled out into 3 sections: Veg, Fish, Meat. And a separate daily special of Bread, Oyster, & Goat. All the dishes are small so they are to be shared. (Although the cost would lead you to believe they were very large dishes). So we decided to pick 3 Veg, 3 Fish, 2 meats, and 2 dessert for the 3 of us.

I didn't get pictures of everything, so here's a quick low-down (Go to the menu here)

Veg:  Asparagus with bleu cheese and radishes, Pan fried Shishito peppers with miso, parmesean and sesame seed, and chickpea fritters with alot of delicious stuff I can't remember but it was GOOD. (found the menu it says: chickpeas fritters . romesco . hazelnut hummus . sesame . goat feta)

Chickpea fritters

Peppers

Fish: Seared tuna with lamb sausage and blueberries, SoftShell crab with a sort of squash slaw, and salmon tartar with fried squash blossoms.

Salmon tartare

Meat: We went all GOAT and got goat loin with root veggies and confit of goat belly with lobster. Wow.

Goat loin

Dessert: A chocolate cake with caramel and shitake gelato, and pork fat fried ganache filled donuts with blackberries. Help me.

DESSERT!

The place was not what I thought - first off it was a large space and can fill a lot of people, so it was loud, almost too loud for conversation. It was also, at the same time, homey and down to earth which clashed with the crowd (the trying so hard to be urban hipster people I love to hate).  It was definitely the place to be and at 5:30 p.m. the place was hopping. The waitstaff was really helpful and we took her suggestions and they were on. The only thing was that she thought the peppers were not hot and I thought they were. Expect to pay a lot but it's the kind of food you won't get anywhere else (or else not prepared in this way). Great location too on Randolph. Bathrooms are all individual - very cool.