Friday, September 23, 2011

Girl & the Goat, take 2 - A random act of kindness


Some of you may remember the first time that Bryan and I had the opportunity to eat at Girl & the Goat, one of the most popular restaurants in Chicago right now. That was definitely a night to remember! Our second date at Girl & the Goat is also a night to remember. I guess we have some major luck when it comes to this place :)

After our first experience, I decided that I should put in reservations to go again in the future. So last March, I was able to make reservations for Monday, September 19th. That's how popular this place is!! When I ended up needing to take the GRE on Tuesday the 20th, I decided to keep the reservation, thinking that it would be a nice little relaxing date night and take the night off before the test. It's definitely a date with a story to tell!

Girl & the Goat has small plates to share that are of three categories: vegetable, fish and meat. We started with their famous bread that is flavored with butter to taste like soup! It was beer bread with beer cheese butter and garlic butter. We ordered two vegetable dishes: the chickpea fritters with eggplant tomatillo caponata and mozzarella, and the infamous sauteed green beans with fish sauce vinaigrette and cashews. For fish, we ordered the seared tuna with lamb sausage, grilled blueberries and pepitas. For our meat dish, we decided to stay away from the multiple tongue options, and ordered grilled pork ribs with tomatillo mushroom slaw and grilled scallion vinaigrette. They were brought out gradually and enjoyed thoroughly! All of the dishes were so incredibly delicious! I can't wait to get back there and try more of the food! I just can't say enough how good it is!!!

Alright, so you thought the food was the best part. Close. Towards the end of our dinner, our waiter informed us that the couple sitting next to us (actually, it was quite a close proximity because the restaurant was packed!) who had just left had paid for our meal! We were so flabbergasted, we didn't even know what to do! The waiter said he'd be back with dessert menus and left the table side. Bryan happened to see a glimpse of the gentleman out of the window and ran outside to thank him and exclaim our awe. The man, who I think would have liked to escape faster, just wished us both the best of luck. We were thinking back over the course of our meal - we did have a few conversations with the couple. We introduced ourselves and explained what we do. We eyed each others dishes when they came out, and when asked, we gave them a suggestion of a location for them to enjoy a drink later. But nothing out of the ordinary!!!

The waiter came back with dessert menus and stated that not only did the gentleman pay for our meal, but he left a sizable cushion and that we needed to order a couple desserts and have a couple more drinks each. We were just stunned! Not only that, but we were so full we didn't even think we could even share one dessert! We just couldn't handle it, and felt bad, so we told the waiter that we'd share one dessert and a desert wine. He came back with two desserts and two different drinks, "because they're good, and we should just enjoy it!" The menu changes so frequently, I can't even look up what we had. One was a chocolatey delight with brown sugar cake and the other was a warm blueberry delicious explosion of goodness. We probably sat there an hour longer than we should have just enjoying ourselves and the fun evening.

Bryan found out that the gentleman's name was Joel and we have him to thank for our wonderful date night. I don't think there is any better way to thank him than to pay it forward in the future... when we can hopefully afford it!

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