Big bar, lots of seating (but lots of demand too).
I think I mentioned elsewhere that the night I went to sit at the bar - a Monday - the bar was closed due to staffing issues. I asked about that last night and was told that only occurred once and is unlikely to repeat.
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Got it, thanks. I might stop by tonight for a solo dinner so I was trying to see if it would be possible.
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Funny!!!
If jury duty doesn’t screw things up, my plan is to get there 15 minutes before they open.
Naan and dips. Carrot hummus was delicious. Warm fluffy naan was great
Short rib was well cooked
Green beans had the very wok hei flavor you’d get at Chinese restaurant
Oysters were yummy. Even my wife who does not normally like cooked oysters thought this was great
Vanilla chicken thigh confused my palate. There were too many flavors for my taste. Wished we ordered the pork shank instead.
Fun natural wine from Baja
Took blurry pics of the tomatoes and stone fruit, beets, shrimp salad and scallops. The tomato salad was very similar to Majordomo. Delicious and refreshing with perfectly ripe ingredients. Scallops were excellent. The meal was very good but the one thing we noticed is that a lot of the dishes were sauced, sometimes heavily and the sauces at times masked the flavor is the main ingredients. Would definitely come back to try other dishes. Excellent service and gorgeous space.
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Peony: Girl and the Goat is a lovely “hustling and bustling” restaurant. All the dishes were strongly flavored. My favorite was the salmon poke. I like the combination of salmon, avocado, strawberries, and tiny tomatoes seasoned with chili oil and sesame. Somehow, all of the different textures and flavors just worked well together and complement each other. The chicken thigh dish was also interesting, as I tasted strong smoky flavor in the chicken meat. The oyster sauce ice cream actually worked, although the amount of oyster sauce is very tiny. So overall, I find all the dishes were made well and pleasant to eat, and I like how they incorporated Asian flavors into the dishes.
Warrior: I would say the best restaurants in the Arts District are Bavel, Brera, Factory Kitchen, Bestia, and Manuela. I would put Girl and the Goat below those restaurants. I didn’t find most of the dish concepts and flavor ideas appealing. I did like the salmon poke (agree with Peony’s comment above) and the “naan.” But when we were driving home past Brera, I thought damn — I would have much rather eaten there.
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When I first heard the Girl and the Goat was coming to my neighborhood, I was cautiously optimistic. I’m a Top Chef fan and knew how beloved Chef Izard’s Chicago restaurant was, but also was a bit scared this new location could be just a shell of the original.
Wow, I am so happy to say this restaurant slaps.
My crew and I rolled up to a 7:15 reservation, but didn’t get seated until 8. With all of us a little hangry (we couldn’t even order drinks and wait by the bar), the Girl and the Goat had a bit of a hill to climb. But, they more than surpassed our expectations with exciting food, as well as exceptional, attentive, and warm service.
Goat Liver Mousse
One of the few items we knew we needed to order and it was a roundhouse kick to the face. And then the crumpets kneed me in the groin. What a total knock out—it’s a must order. If you skipped it, you messed up.
Sourdough with Harissa Butter and Giardiniera
As a make-good for the delay on getting seated, the staff started bringing out an array of dishes on the house, and this was the first. I didn’t hear them say the butter was butter so I liberally spread this on a slice. So it was a bit overkill, but I didn’t mind.
Naan and Dips
This was probably one of the indications that this is a Top Chef restaurant. Neither the carrot hummus nor tahini tofu blew me away–though they were good–but the fact that they are trying interesting stuff like this reminded me a bit of our dearly beloved Nightshade (even if exceptionally the dish wouldn’t touch anything there).
Roasted Beet
Everyone’s got a beet dish on the menu and they’ve all got a high floor so we thought this would be a safe, crowd pleasing order to say we got some vegetables. To be honest, it kind of got lost in the parade of dishes, but I don’t remember disliking it. Again, there’s some nice creativity here with the addition of berries and a nutty crunch.
Tomato and Stone Fruit
Shitty picture, messy dish, and and a complete stunner. This was our favorite of the salads/vegetables. It just hit on so many levels. Just interpret the blur as my physiological response to taste ecstasy.
Chickpea Fritters
It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting, which turned out to be a plus. We wanted to be surprised throughout the meal and this was a dish that caught us off guard in a great way. It was a bit small, but mighty.
Summer Squash
Fried zucchini with fried onions is tough to mess up. The sauce was awesome.
Grilled Corn
Super sweet, peak summer corn, covered in butter and cheese—another can’t miss. We were also multiple cocktails in at this point and it was just fun to get a bit messy eating with our fingers.
Pork Belly
This is under the “salad” section 
and turned out to be another surprise stunner. It was one of special things that we noticed as we were all passing dishes around to each other shouting with full mouths “half-you-try-dis?”
Sautéed Green Beans
Honestly, one of the best vegetable dishes I’ve had in awhile. It read’s pretty simply as just “fish sauce vinaigrette and cashews” but it tastes so much more than that.
Lamb Sirloin Skewer
We knew to order two of these for our entire table, and it’s among the best cooked lamb I’ve had in the past few years—incredibly flavorful and tender. There’s a lot going on, but again just smacks of flavor.
Beef Short Rib
Not essential compared to the other dishes we had (it would be in the bottom half of the power ranking) but still well composed and fully enjoyed. If this was the centerpiece of the meal, it probably would have gotten a little more shine.
Goat Curry
Another dish we knew we needed to order before we sat down, and it didn’t disappoint. I think the rest of the table was a bit let down that they were so stuffed with everything else that they couldn’t physically stomach as much of this as they wanted. Amateurs. I knew to save myself and yes it was worth it. The masa chips mixed in got to that crispy-gone-soggy texture and it was wonderful.
PB&Gs
Way better than it probably should have been and we ordered it out of curiosity having just experienced all these other creative savory dishes. It’s peanut butter ice cream with roasted grapes, mini pickled champagne grapes, sliced grapes, and a chocolate crunch. It was super interesting and well liked.
Popcorn Situation
Insanely sweet, but the butter cake itself was so moist and dense I was both impressed and overwhelmed.
We were stuffed. The Arts District is lucky to have another injection of creativity into the restaurant scene (I’m still holding out hope that Nightshade comes back!) and I’m looking forward to coming back.
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Ha, you ordered almost everything I did the other night.
I’ll post soon, I got so many dishes that it’ll be a chore.
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Dinner last night killed. Tomato salad, goat pate, sourdough bread, green beans, corn, shishitos, lamb kebab, salmon poke, branzino and the pork shank…oh and the popcorn ice cream. Amazing meal, best service I’ve had in a while in LA, including the sommelier who was really wonderful. They let us byob three bottles, though their limit is two. Met the chef’s mom, shared a glass of wine with her table. Just a superb experience. Probably my new favorite place.
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Couldn’t decide between red and white so.
Goat liver and scalding hot muffins. This was great. The cherries weren’t sweet, just slightly sour. Did they say they roasted them? The other two items were great though I didn’t want them with the liver.
Bread was just OK, not great like what I had in Chicago. Great relish, whatever it was.
They comped me a couple of oysters. Way hell of a lot going on there. There’s actually leftover clam liquid in the dough of the bread. Very rich.
Beet salad, excellent.
Straight-up chaat. Solid.
Green beans.
Goat belly, really good but very rich. I was hitting my limit.
Had to try the (housemade) oyster sauce stracciatella. Couldn’t taste oyster but the salty caramel sauce was great. My kind of dessert.
I was musing to the sommelier or server that Chartreuse would be a good match for that and they comped me a shot.
I liked all the dishes but everything was on the complicated side and I feel like a few dishes in I got palate fatigue. Would probably have enjoyed the meal more if I’d ordered only say four things. I had leftover green beans last night and they were much better than I’d realized, really a fun variation on the usual wok-charred Chinese dish. Some of the prices were surprisingy reasonable by LA standards.
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Ugh stupid surcharges. Hate them so much.
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There are sound business reasons for doing that.
Please take any discussion of surcharges to the Restaurants Meta category.
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The prices are shockingly reasonable for LA. But what’s with this double surcharge?
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No idea why it’s two items, but they add up to the 4% for health and medical benefits specified on the menu.
Even visually on the computer, these dishes are a lot to look at. Wonder if this style of cooking was originally born out of the need to make less pristine ingredients taste good or is it just a desire to add more and more flavor. Majordomo definitely has dishes trying to be flavor bombs as well.
Anyway, definitely would like to try this LA location of G&G. I like that they carry some reasonably priced wines (< $20 at retail) too.
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I’m sure this must’ve been discussed above, but you were able to walk in, or you had a reservation?
Bar is fairly large and open to walk-ins.
The three times I have been in there was seating available.
I don’t think you can walk in and get a table right now.
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I made a reservation.
I have mixed feelings about this place. Everything we had tonight had good taste profiles but everything maybe with the exception of the goat liver had maybe too big bold flavors. It felt like it lacked finesse and refinement in the cooking. I don’t think a Michelin two star chef would serve any of these dishes.
FWIW Sergio was not in the house.
Having said that, the pork belly salad was our standout dish. Very southeast Asian influenced flavors with a Californian twist.
The tomato salad is a prime example of good flavor profile but too much flavor if that makes sense. I think it may have been over dressed but also, could have taken a notch down on the seasoning.
Pork shank was probably my 2nd favorite dish of the night.
The rest of the dishes
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