Girl and the Goat is the West Loop brain child of Stephanie Izard, thus far the only woman to win the title award on TV’s “Top Chef.” Leesa tried to get snag us reservations there last year, but her efforts were futile, so this year, I tried to book a few months in advance using OpenTable. When I had no success with that (it kept telling me I was trying to book too far in advance), I e-mailed the restaurant and found out that while OpenTable imposed a 90-day-early policy, they booked up to a year in advance (!) by phone! So, needless to say, I called immediately and signed us up for what would either be a very early (5:30) or very late (after 9) dinner; we opted for the early.

Take in mind, it was pretty easy for me to get a dining time because we were flexible, but apparently, this is not always the case! I have heard several people since say that they have had to wait for months to get a table. Granted, we booked three months in advance, but I have no idea how successful (or not) we would have been if we had tried to book something more immediate when I made the reservations back in October, so it seems like either way, we totally lucked out.

So, did Girl & the Goat live up to the hype? Was it worth the wait? Two words: Heck, yeah!

First, they have a rotation of breads. A rotation. You know how so many places have one signature bread? Well, G&TG rotates in three per night:

They may not look like much, but the night we went, we had these three: the Squish Squash (a squash-based loaf) served with apple purée and pecan butter, the pretzel loaf served with honey mustard butter and 1000 island and the Chicken Little (a chicken noodle-based loaf) served with chicken liver butter and carrot sage oil. If that doesn’t get your mouth watering, you must be one of those anti-carb people. And even then . . . you know you secretly want it.

The rest of the menu is divided into sections by main ingredient type: vegetable, seafood or meat. I couldn’t tell you which items necessarily came from which menu section, as I believe the following came from the meat section:

Ham frites, people. Ham frites with tomato aioli and beer cheddar dipping sauces. The beer cheddar packed a lip-smacking punch — and who doesn’t like a good aioli with their fried carbs? So good. I’m not exactly sure where the “ham” came in other than that maybe the potatoes were fried with some bacon-like deliciousness. It was straight up fried goodness. Everyone at the table enjoyed these.

Pretty much anyone from Hawai‘i could identify these by their signature flat bone cut:

These Kalbi-style ribs were done with the authenticity you’d expect from any Korean restaurant. Todd liked them for their simplicity, especially among the cacophany of flavors and exotic offerings on the menu. (Yes, this is a “safe” dish for those who may not be into taking too many culinary risks.)

The more adventurous among us enjoyed a few other dishes, as well:

Spaghetti squash provided the perfect textural complement to these blue prawns. The peanut-pork ragout was like a richer version of a Thai-inspired peanut sauce. I never would have expected such freshness of shrimp so far inland, but the salty flavor of the ocean was perfectly preserved in these perfectly cooked crustaceans. A definite winner.

The goat, pork and veal sugo with pappardele was delicately seasoned with rosemary (which can be too strong if you’re not careful) and cape gooseberries. I’m not really sure how the flavors all balanced out with this one, as none of these are ingredients I would normally cook with (except for maybe pork), but we really liked this dish, too. I think I picked it because of the berries in the description, and the gamble really paid off.

Finally . . . THE PIG FACE!

Leesa was relieved when she learned that we would not actually be presented with an actual pig’s face (which, if you’ve ever been to a Chinese restaurant or a Filipino party, you know they can do). In fact, as you can see from the photo, you can’t even see the pork (wood-roasted pig cheek) pretty much at all until you move the egg aside. The way this dish works is, you break the egg and mix everything on the plate together. It looks completely unattractive at that point, but once you taste it, you don’t care. The main ingredient is fork tender and melt-in-your-mouth delicious, seasoned with tamarind and cilantro, with potato sticks providing just the right touch of crunch.

Girl & the Goat received a 2011 James Beard nomination, and Stephanie Izard was named Food & Wine’s Best New Chef of 2011. Why these awards are hanging in the dark basement hall, I couldn’t tell you, but they are well-deserved in a city that takes no culinary prisoners.

Oh, yeah . . . and I totally dig the napkin-holders:

We’d definitely dine there again! G&TG is a welcome addition to the mandatory Chicago dining experience.

We were only in the Midwest for a slightly extended holiday (Kamehameha Day) weekend, which meant only three full days. Somehow, those included two baseball games, both involving the Milwaukee Brewers. Todd and I had already done a Miller Park tour with our friends Kathleen and Jim back when Jim was working in Wisconsin, but we’d never seen a game there, and in all honesty, I was just dying to see the legendary Sausage Race. When I found out that the Brewers were going to be playing the Cardinals at Miller Park the weekend we were planning to be in Chicago, I knew it was destiny: We had to go. Of course, our friends Leesa and Scott offered to drive and make it happen.

Todd and me in the Miller Park bleachers before the game.

Sausage Race! So. Awesome.

So was the Sausage Race all it was cracked up to be? YOU BET. Plus, because it was “Sausage Sunday” (that’s what she said . . . really, that is what the girl at the Meat Locker — not kidding — said), all souvenirs having to do with the Sausage Race were 10% off at the gift shop! I mighta kinda gone bananas purchasing omiyage and souvenirs for myself (including a pair of Chorizo earrings and a stuffed Chorizo doll), but what a bargain! Plus, who else is gonna bring home Sausage Race gifts, right?

Totally weird: Because Chorizo is my favorite of the Sausage Race dudes and I bought mostly stuff with him on it, the cashier seemed to assume that I was Mexican and made a sympathetic remark about me having missed Cerveceros Day by one day. Do I need to start taping my eyelids or what!

The next day was another Brewers game, but this time, it was the Brewers vs. my Cubbies at our “home” stadium, Wrigley Field. Todd and I have had a paver at Wrigley since the brick program started in 2007. The Cubs keep moving it around as they do renovations at the ballpark, but we managed to find it again this season:

The brick! Yay!

And, of course, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the game.

The iconic Wrigley Field scoreboard.

Not a better place in the world to watch a ball game.

My favorite Cub, Ryan Dempster, was the starting pitcher!

By enjoying ourselves, I mean there was some serious whooping and screaming going on. OK, so maybe only I was yelling . . . which would explain why I was a little hoarse afterward. What can you do. And hey, maybe it worked: After all, Cubs did snap their gazillion-game losing streak and take the first of three games they would eventually win in the series against the Brewers. Now they’re no longer in last place in the National League Central!

Oh, how I do love a Cubs game. Even when they’re losing, even when they’re on rain delay, there’s nothing quite like it.

The weather, by the way, was superb: 60s and 70s with wind chills in the 50s and 60s. I loved every minute. When the fog cleared away, you really couldn’t beat the view . . .

The Chicago River, as viewed from the Michigan Avenue bridge.

. . . and, of course, it’s hard to beat Chicago food:

Mochomos (crunchy threads of grass-fed beef brisket), Topolobampo.

Borrego en Mole Negro (lamb leg w/Rick Bayless’ prize-winning Oaxacan molé), Topolobampo.

The Mastodon, Kuma’s Corner (most Yelped restaurant in Chicago).

Portillo’s cheese fries: They may not look like much, but they are the best cheese fries out!

Ahh, Chicago. I miss you already. When’s our next adventure?

I thought I’d tackle salads first. Here are my favorite salads from this trip:

Pea shoot & fennel salad, Terzo Piano. Isn’t this one pretty? I can’t say I’d ever had pea shoots in my life up until this point, and I was slightly intimidated by the thought, but I was ordering off the Restaurant Week menu, and I believe all they had otherwise was soup. Even though it was completely vegetarian, I really liked this salad. The goat cheese provided a nice contrast with the earthiness of the greens, and the tarragon dressing wasn’t overwhelming.

Braised rabbit salad, The Gage. OK, so you can’t see the rabbit – but believe me, it’s there, and there’s a lot of it underneath all those greens. Apparently, the green stuff was arugula, which I usually can’t stand, but it was pretty tolerable here. Sorry, vegans, this one is not for you at all, though (in case you didn’t get the hint from the name of the salad): The Langhe Robiola and crisped rice were nice, to be sure, but the rabbit was truly the marquee item. Had I known it would be so plentiful and savory, I would have stuck gotten this as my meal instead of as a starter. It was better than the pork chop I didn’t end up finishing anyway. The meat was pulled, tender and smoky, like kalua pig. Mmmm. Definitely going back for this one.

Macho salad, Bandera. I’m not sure how it is that I’ve passed Bandera by so many times over the years and not gone in. Maybe I was wary of it because it sits perched above Michigan Avenue with its name in that really tacky font . . . but anyway, then I heard a couple nice things about it and thought I should give it a shot. This salad made the 15-minute wait for seating (alongside the whiniest middle-aged metrosexual wannabe ever, by the way) totally worthwhile. Look at this salad. LOOK AT IT! That’s chicken, tomatoes, dates, avocado, goat cheese, corn . . . I don’t know what more you could put in there before your head exploded. (OK, maybe rabbit. But then you wouldn’t need the chicken, and the chicken is actually pretty good.) It’s pretty much a chopped salad on steroids. And now that I know it exists, I am pretty sure I can order it to go in the future, thus circumventing waiting among the whiny and dining in an that relatively uncomfortable booth.

So that’s it for salads. Maybe next time I’ll write about deep dish. ;o)

Sorry, the cheese fries aren’t photogenic, but the restaurant itself is.

So, ice skating . . . If you’ve ever seen me do it, you’ll just shake your head. But as a Cubs fan, I had to take advantage of this rare opportunity, since we hit town smack at the end of February, just as the season for ice skating at Wrigley Field was coming to an end. Sure, the ice rink was technically in the Clark Street parking lot and not in the stadium itself, but if you’re a big enough fan, you’ll take it – even if you suck on skates.

Sure, Todd spent a lot more time on the ice than I did, but I had fun warming a spot on some metal benches in the falling snow.

Of course, I couldn’t NOT pose with one of the hockey sticks that lined one wall of the rink . . .

We also thought it was super cute that the rink, which is really inexpensive to skate at (I think it was $20 for both of us, including skate rental – because heck if you’d bring your own skates from Hawai‘i, even if you had a pair, right?), had its own branded Zamboni! If you’re thinking “of course,” consider that the Zamboni at the United Center is branded Budweiser, not Blackhawks, so this was pretty fun to look at:

It also seemed like it came out of nowhere, which made it even more amusing. Ahh, the things you can find entertaining after you’ve been on a plane for nine hours.

These aren’t views from my house in the valley, but from the 30-something-th floor at the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio, where a friend of a friend was staying a few weeks ago. We went up to the room at dusk to enjoy the view. Simply spectacular. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have an ocean view like that.

Madagascar day geckos are more commonly found on the Big Island than anywhere else in Hawai‘i. They are delightful to look at – and, fortunately for photographers, much more bold and willing to “pose” for photos.

Even though we are not HUGE beer fans (I like beer enough, but I will pretty much nurse a single glass/bottle all evening and usually not finish it), Todd and I find brewery tours to be interesting, so we made it a point to visit the Kona Brewing Co. The tour was way cool, we learned a lot about how this local business operates . . . and we got to sample some free beer.

Me in the beer chiller. It was super nice to get out of the heat, even if just for a minute. ;o)

But by far the coolest thing we did in Kona was the thing I planned farthest in advance (i.e., two whole days before we left – seriously, nobody plans that far ahead for a neighbor island trip): an aerial tour of the island with Paradise Helicopters. Because of the active volcano (and, thus, the ever changing landscape of the island), you can’t just drive everywhere on the Big Island. In fact, I’d venture to say that you can’t drive most places, so while $333/person seemed kind of steep (and that was the kama‘aina rate!), I knew we had to do it, especially since I really wanted to see the Kilauea lava flow without having to hike or drive anywhere illegal. Was it worth it? Take a look:

Halema‘uma‘u crater, Kilauea volcano. Halema‘uma‘u is not the source of the current lava flow, but it’s still fascinating because this vent runs about 100 meters deep.

Lava meets the sea. The steam is the star of this shot – you can only imagine how crazy it is when the super hot lava reaches the cool Pacific Ocean – but if you look carefully, you can see where the molten lava is peeking out from under the new land it’s creating. SUPER cool.

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater has been the site of continuous eruption since 1983. Nine. Teen. Eighty. Three. That is insane. And there’s no end in sight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t spewing lava as we flew over. Err, then again, maybe we wouldn’t have been able to fly nearby if it had been. Ha.

Waterfalls in Waipi‘o Valley. Simply amazing. I’m tellin’ ya, though, even if you could drive here, you probably wouldn’t want to. BTW, non-Hawai‘i people, this is not the Waipi‘o that our U.S. champion Little League team is from.

Waterfalls along the Hamakua Coast. Just amazing. I don’t even know how you get here, but it probably doesn’t look that amazing from ground/sea level, anyway.

So if you’re not from Hawai‘i, the Hawai‘i Experience tour will cost you over $400, but it is TOTALLY worth it. Paradise Helicopters has an amazingly knowledgable staff that can answer any question you may have, and they use two-way communication in flight, so you can ask those questions any time you want. Our pilot did rotations in Waipi‘o Valley so we could shoot the waterfalls from different perspectives no matter which side of the helicopter we were on. Way better than any double-decker bus tour you may have done in any other county in the U.S., guaranteed.

One thing we didn’t get to do was visit the sea horse gene bank (I am not kidding, I totally want to see this place), as they are only open on weekdays, and we already had plans for the Friday we were there. Sounds like another excuse to visit, if you ask me. ;o)

But I’ll get over it . . . because you know how much I love this city. So moving on . . .

Todd and I have been to the Taste of Chicago a few times over the years. Yes, the vendors are usually the same, but since we don’t really stay close to Grant Park and since we walk there (i.e., instead of taking the train), we’ll usually only go for one day and really only visit a few booths each time. The only booth I make sure we go to is the Original Rainbow Cone booth – because they make the best sherbet in the world – but other than that, we never know what we’re going to sample. Here’s what we tried this time:

Mustard-fried catfish, BJ’s Market & Bakery (8734 S. Stony Island Ave.).

This was, hands down, the best catfish I have ever tasted. The crunch was delightful, and you would never believe such a nice taste could come from such an ugly animal. ;o)

Gazpacho with avocado and chopped chives, The Grill on the Alley (909 N. Michigan Ave.).

The gazpacho was cool and refreshing on a hot day, and the smidgen of avocado was a very nice touch. I wish I could make my gazpacho taste this good without looking as, well, dull orangey-brown as my gazpacho often turns out.

Steak taco, Carbón Live Fire Mexican Grill (300 W. 26th St.).

What can you say, it was a steak taco. Todd liked it. I appreciated that the tortilla was not overly dry.

Key lime pie, JR Dessert Bakery (2841 W. Howard St.).

It may not look like much, but this was THE best key lime pie I have ever had. While it lacked that creamy consistency I tend to favor in the dessert, JR’s key lime pie struck the perfect balance between tangy and sweet, and the crust was nice and nutty.

Jerk chicken, Iyanze (4623 N. Broadway).

Holy cow. Good thing we only got the Taste portion of Iyanze’s jerk chicken, because not only was it generous (everything pictured above, with the exception of the key lime pie, was a Taste portion, btw), but it was SPICY. Flaming hot, actually, is how I would describe my tongue for a good five minutes after I insisted on gulping this down. I mean, it was good – and amazingly, you could still taste the spices through the heat – but man . . . Yowza.

Of course we had to finish off the evening with a Taste portion from the Original Rainbow Cone. It’s my favorite frozen thing in the world! I mean, come on: The pistachio and Palmer House (cherry/walnut) flavors alone make it worthwhile.

Shortly after we enjoyed our Rainbow Cone goodies, we, along with hundreds of others, were ushered out of Grant Park by a few dozen of Chicago’s finest (and about a half-dozen of their maned, four-legged friends), as the Taste and the park close at 9 p.m. – and thus we end this edition of The Kawamotos Take on The Taste. Tune in next time . . .

. . . Luray Caverns in Virginia, the highlight of which is always Dream Lake, which features an awesome reflection of its stalactites . . .

. . . having even more oysters at Faidley’s raw seafood bar in Lexington Market, courtesy of Bill Adams . . .

. . . and touring Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles.

Fun, even though I got pretty sunburned in D.C. :o)

In short . . . Todd and I went to Boston. No reason in particular for the trip, we’d just never been there before. We did a pretty kickass tour of Fenway Park . . .

. . . and visited with the Porzios and their kids . . .

. . . and had free beer at the Sam Adams brewery . . .

. . . and visited historical sites like Faneuil Hall . . .

. . . and ate lots of seafood.

Not bad for less than a week, right?

Then we headed south to the D.C. area to wreak more havoc on the Continental U.S., but that’s another blog entry for another day.

A couple of weeks ago, we made our way over to the Big Island for three days of R&R with the family. We stayed at the Marriott in Waikoloa, which is a bit more luxurious than I’m accustomed to, and had ocean view rooms:

View from our balcony by day, Marriott Waikoloa Resort.

Sunset from our balcony, Marriott Waikoloa Resort.

But even with all that beauty, we couldn’t just stay cooped up in the hotel. Here are a few of my favorite shots from around the west side of our easternmost island:

Kealakekua Bay. The obelisk shape in the distance (sandwiched by two white sailboats) is the Captain Cook monument, which marks the site where the Hawaiians killed Capt. James Cook once they figured out he wasn’t a god after all.

Honu (sea turtle) resting on the sand, Pu‘uhonua o Hōnaunau (City of Refuge) National Historical Park.

Ancient Hawaiian fish ponds at Anaeho‘omalu Bay, Waikoloa.

It’s hard to imagine that all this was followed by one of the worst weeks EVER at the office, but (a) health care reform passed, (b) I’m about to head off on another vacation, and (c) it’s almost time for baseball season, so things are looking up!