The Little Goat
 Chicago, Illinois        Date of Visit  11/19/16           http://littlegoatchicago.com

We are seriously cheffing it up big time in the Windy. Bayless, Achatz, and now Izzard on our way out of town. We make a loop around restaurant row in the old meat packing district of the city and pull up right in front of Stephanie Izzard’s diner across the street from her highly regarded fine dining Girl and the Goat. The Little Goat is diner all day, top to bottom, decor, feel, with full menu available all day.
 

Most of the staff has an alternatively fun/tattooed feel about them. Definitely the dictionary definition of not judging books by covers, super pleasant, super efficient, way cooler than me. Our server (Kasey) is ready for fun at 8:00 in the morning and on the ball as you are going to find. We get coffee and hot chocolate while our first two sides arrive.

The first are thin and stringy hash browns folded over a wee bit of goat cheese…oh, we are doing this at home with an absurd amount of goat cheese…but these are chef salted (aggressively). The taters themselves range from just a hint of color to a dark crunchy brown. Off to a great start. The second is their “Ooey Gooey” Cinnabun which is slathered with sweet vanilla ooze. Here’s the thing…it was way drier than you would expect for ooey, gooey. Here’s the real thing. Kasey approached our table with a scone on a plate and explained one of the bakers had freaked out that the cinnabun had been served to us because it was over baked and had sent the scone as recompense. Perfect doesn’t exist…the closest you can hope for is recognizing a mistake, owning it, and doing something about it. Who really cares if a few out of town rubes get a dry cinnamon bun? People who really care, that’s who. Excellent service all the way around. The scone was wonderful BTW.

We limited ourselves to the breakfast side of the menu from which choosing was torturous enough. My least favorite was the Smoked Corned Beef Hash with Eggs. Perfectly sunny/runny eggs, nice house smoked corned beef in slices with bits of hard sear, more delicious hash brown strings…it is an great hash dish…it just didn’t do what the others did.
 

Next rung up the ladder was the Bull’s Eye French Toast. If you’ve ever had egg in a basket or toad in a hole or bird’s nest, or whatever…imagine it with the egg relaxing in the center punch of French toast instead of griddled toast. Sweet AND savory. To further blend the two factions of breakfast glory, it was topped with syrup, strawberries, and, uh, oh yeah, fried chicken. Wonderful…but again…didn’t manage to do what the other two did. Which was to take common diner fare and give it a top chef dash around the globe.
 

Like, This Little Piggy Went To China. Imagine your typical drive through breakfast sandwich with a visa and worldly knowledge. It starts with a sesame cheddar biscuit stuffed with a szechuan pork sausage, topped with sunny eggs, sprinkled with the most peculiar little yellow fruit halves with sweet citrusy bite and sitting in a small lake of chili garlic chive sauce. Every bit is delicious but for me, the sauce imbues every bite with excitement, stunning and unique flavor, and brings you in for another bite to try to process it all.
 

Then came the Creole Crab Crumpets. The baked good at the base of this plate was phenomenal. I don’t know if this is what a proper English crumpet tastes of, but if it’s not…I’m telling you the Johnny Bulls got it all wrong. So rich in its savoriness, my heart is sad Chicago is so far away. Plop it in a sweet and smoky sauce, top with lump crab riddled croquettes, sunny side eggs and a pile of pickled veg and you have another stunning dish you can’t stop eating, both for flavor and to try to understand the world a little better. How do you turn that down. What a trip! Our thanks to Chicago’s Chef’s, cooks, and their staffs. Can’t wait to return.