Allie Carson

Come on, baby don’t you want to go
Come on, baby don’t you want to go
To the same old place, sweet home Chicago

Robert Johnson may have written the lyrics, but most of us remember the Blues Brothers version of Sweet Home Chicago. As a former Chicago native, I sing the lyrics every time I return to the Windy City.

As mentioned in last week’s article about Hot Doug’s and The Purple Pig, Chris and I spent multiple nights in Chicago, Illinois, recently to see Phish at the UIC Pavilion. While planning for this trip, our friends Mindy and Patterson insisted that we eat at Girl and the Goat with them. This restaurant is so popular, we had to book a reservation more than two months in advance. It turned out to be an excellent choice for our “farewell to Chicago” meal with our friends. I would like to thank Mindy for her help as guest photographer for some of the pictures posted in this article.

The “Girl” from Girl and the Goat is Stephanie Izard–she won the illustrious title of Top Chef in Season Four when the show was hosted in Chicago. She opened Girl and the Goat in Summer 2010, and the restaurant has developed a cult following since. I am always curious when a restaurant gains this much buzz. Is it because they have a good Public Relations firm? Is it because the chef is popular? Is it because the food is actually that good? In the case of Girl and the Goat, the food is that good.

We started off with two types of oysters. I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of oysters by nature. Raw shellfish has never been my thing. However, these were lightly roasted in a wood-burning oven and prepared in unique ways I had not experienced previously.

READ ON for more on Girl and the Goat…