The Girl and the Goat has been one of the most popular restaurants in Chicago for almost 15 years, and I had always thought it was pretty average, and not super impressive, so I hadn’t been in a very, very long time. I thought I’d give this restaurant that continues its extreme popularity another shot during restaurant week, and I still think this place is pretty mid for the hype. The food and service are not bad, though nothing super special, it’s not a great value, and there are simply just many more better places in Chicago to get great food. Check out my Top Five Favorite Restaurants in Chicago list for better options if you’re visiting here.

The restaurant was completely packed to the brim on a Friday night, and we were seated at a small little chef’s counter right by the kitchen, so we made friends with all of the line cooks working on all of the different restaurant week dishes right in front of us. This was cute, but I typically don’t love sitting at a chef’s table, especially since it was a counter height table with no bar for your feet below, making it pretty uncomfortable overall. All of the other tables, though, are jammed together so closely so as to maximize the space (and the bucks!), so it’s quite possible that the chef’s counter was probably the most possible room we could’ve had eating here. This restaurant is extremely loud, and it’s difficult to hear your friends, and the servers. It does have a pretty hip vibe, though, and the servers are attentive and things are paced pretty decently.

The food is pretty good, although nothing really stood out for me. At $59 per person, I don’t think that the restaurant week menu was a good value at all, as the vast majority of the dishes were vegetarian, and the only course with goat in it (the empanada) was a $21 upcharge. I thought this was a pretty tacky upcharge, and to not include a signature item at the restaurant on your restaurant week menu was pretty cruddy in my opinion. We also opted for the wine pairings, which were $29, and were promised to be three wines with five ounce pours apiece. They were DEFINITELY not five ounce pours, probably more like three ounces, and they unceremoniously brought the three wines out together at the same time with no explanation or discussion as to which wines pair with what dishes, or anything about the grapes, producers, or vineyards. Boring.

The evening started off well, though, with two pieces of sweet onion brioche which were served with a healthy amount of goat liver mousse and a pickle relish. The bread was so soft and sweet and buttery, and both garnishes were extremely good. There was, unfortunately, not enough bread to finish off the mousse, which I thought was a waste.

The first course for restaurant week was hamachi poke, which I don’t eat, but this was a generous portion. I was actually given the third degree by our server as to why I don’t eat raw fish (essentially an allergy) as though I just didn’t like it or didn’t want to try it, which I thought was unprofessional and strange. Nevertheless, they did bring me a chick pea fritter salad, which was actually one of my favorite dishes of the evening. The chick peas themselves were fried, crunchy and spicy, and the fritters themselves had a great texture. I loved the added crunch from the pomegranate arils.

Following this was a kohlrabi salad with a ginger maple dressing, which was surprising, though still more salad. I don’t usually love kohlrabi, but this was prepared very nicely with a good crunch. The salad had almonds, mint, mushrooms, and berries, and was nice. I would note that pretty much everything we ate had mint in it, which was a bit overkill, despite the fact that I love mint!

Next were the goat empanadas, which were amazing, and it was just sad that it was an extra charge for these. The empanadas themselves had a perfect texture and crunch, and the goat meat inside was flavorful and savory. This was served with amazingly flavored and crunchy plantain salad, which was a delicious accompaniment, although the additional mint was, again, not necessary.

Next up was grilled broccoli. That’s it. Broccoli with more mint on a plate. This was a total miss for me and I barely ate any of it. Broccoli is one of my absolute favorite veggies, and we eat it at home all the time, but the harissa dill vinaigrette just did not pair with this vegetable and it was pretty terrible.

The final savory course was a short rib course, which I was really looking forward to, but ended up being pretty mediocre. The short ribs themselves were fried to a crisp, which is totally unnecessary for this tender meat that is already flavorful without messing with it too much, and there was probably a total of only two-to-three ounces of meat to share on the plate along with, yup, more veggies. While I can’t say the flavor was bad, I just feel like you shouldn’t mess with short ribs so much. Slow cook them so they’re tender and you don’t need to do much else. Also three ounces for two people? Pretty chintzy if you ask me. At least they didn’t put mint on it.

The other best dish we received for restaurant week was the dessert, which was a butterscotch budino with plantain cake, passionfruit honey and a malt whip. Our new friend on the other side of our table prepping the food prepared these desserts with care, and the passionfruit gave a super nice acidic balance to the otherwise very rich and sweet dessert. I know that Stephanie Izard won Top Chef, essentially due to her desserts, so this course really did shine.

Honestly, I think the Girl and the Goat exists mainly due to Ms. Izard’s fame, but the restaurant menu was a terrible value for the dollar, was a bit gouging on the prices for the extra empanadas, and the wine amounts that were promised were not delivered. I do love Ms. Izard’s restaurant Duck Duck Goat, as I find the food there to be a better value, better tasting, and far more interesting. Honestly, I would go so far as to say that the Girl and the Goat is, essentially, a tourist trap restaurant, and you should skip it. There are far, far better places to go in the city for incredible food that will seriously blow you away. I hadn’t been here in nearly ten years, and I won’t come back.