There are girls. There are goats. Then, there is The Girl and the Goat. It isn’t just some restaurant, but is a restaurant that still requires booking two months in advance even though it’s been around for the better part of a decade. Of course, it also happens to be in Chicago, which has a lot of people who like food. It probably doesn’t hurt that the founder and Executive Chef, Stephanie Izard, won Top Chef, went to the University of Michigan and honed her skills at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute.

It also probably doesn’t hurt that pretty much everything on the ever-changing menu looked delicious, starting with the bread. We chose the Blueberry Sourdough because summer is blueberry season. It came with blueberry jam and spring onion cream cheese. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it tasted like a giant blueberry bagel in the best possible way and the spring onion cream cheese didn’t really try to sway that opinion.

I should also mention that this was one of those shared plates places, so brace yourself for a bunch more food, starting with the Goat Empanadas. These were topped with grilled pineapple-blueberry pico, roasted poblano cream and queso fresco. I loved that the inside of the empanada was just straight goat with goatastic seasoning and the dough was flaky and strong. The toppings helped add a balance of flavor to the empanadas, but frankly I would have been nearly as happy if it was just goat and dough.

Next came the Calamari Bruschetta. Longtime readers will note that I am a self-proclaimed hater of seafood. They are correct. In fact, I usually don’t like calamari because almost every restaurant effs it up. But, if calamari is done right it can be a revelation. This calamari wasn’t quite a revelation, but it was quite good. It tasted fresh and instead of being deep fried, it was sauteed to keep the flavor intact. The bread was delicious, as was the cheese atop said bread.

The penultimate dish was completely lacking in meat, but it was still right up my alley. It was the Sweet Corn Pierogies, which was exactly what it sounds like – pierogies with sweet corn. They came with charred scallion sour cream and a sweet corn-tomato chimichurri. They tasted like, well pierogies. I liked them, but it is hard to make pierogies great outside of taking a major risk with them and this dish just didn’t take that risk. I love pierogies and these did their job, but something different would have gone a long way.

For the finale, we had the Crisp Braised Pork Shank. This seemed an oxymoron when I first read it on the menu, because braised stuff is pretty much the opposite of crispy. Yet, when it arrived with the green goddess sauce, stone fruit kimchi and naan I was in for a surprise. The exterior maintained a fantastic crisp, while the pork could just be pulled off the shank in whichever sized chunks I want with a simply tug of the fork. On its own, it was a taste to behold. Combined with the sauce, spicy peaches and soft flatbread it was like the world’s fanciest and most rewarding tacos.

Needless to say, there is a reason why The Girl and the Goat is packed night in and night out. Not every dish was like biting into enlightenment, but enough were to leave me wanting more. My only regret is that I only had one goat dish at a restaurant based around goat. Yet, I can only assume that the rest of the goat dishes were as good as everything else on the menu and that thought it what helps me sleep at night.

EDIT: Grit & Grace is now a noodle bar, but I’m guessing it is just as delicious as before.

While some parts of the country might have Asian fusion around every corner, Pittsburgh has (most likely for the better) avoided much of this. There is, however, a spot downtown called Grit & Grace that has welcomed that sort of cuisine. It starts with a little something they call American Dim Sum. It’s nothing at all like actual dim sum aside from the fact that it is in small servings, but it is quite delicious. We had some of the Pork Belly Bites (with orange, chili, garlic and ginger) and Kimchi Balls (with rice and cheese). They were both incredible, and the balls surprisingly so because I have a rational hatred of kimchi and these tasted nothing like it.

We also had ourselves two orders of their Short Ribs, which came on cream cheese biscuits topped with aged white cheddar cheese and bearnaise sauce. These were simply incredible. Like far too good for their own good. Each order only came with two, but I wished they would have come with 30 because I could have eaten them forever.

For the main course, I split a couple dishes. The first was their Chicken Meatball Ramen, which came with a one hour egg (whatever that means), confit chicken thigh, more kimchi, schmaltz roasted carrots, coriander noodle and of course the meatballs. I, of course, wanted nothing to do with the carrots and kimchi, but after all I was splitting the dish. It was the best ramen I have had in Pittsburgh, and while I usually prefer my ramen simpler, somehow this complexity made it great. Not to mention, the chicken was so tender it should be illegal.

I also split the Braised Goat, which came with appams, garlic/ginger smashed potatoes, curry, creme fraiche and lime. It was a unique mixture of ingredients, but one that worked well. It was put together in a way that you could basically build your own wrap and mine was quite tasty. I didn’t like it as much as the ramen, but it was still welcome.

Grit & Grace turned out to be far better than I expected. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was still great. Each level of my meal seemed to be well thought-out and unique enough to not leave me wanting something different. Asian fusion isn’t dead, at least not in Pittsburgh.

Down in the Strip District is a relative newcomer to Pittsburgh. Called the Thin Man Sandwich Shop, the name really called out to me because I often feel like a fat man trapped in a thin man’s body. It’s a curse, I know. But I digress. Back in the sandwich shop, I immediately impressed by the options they had listed on their chalk board. If nothing else, they were creative with such seasonal sandwiches as Braised Beef Cheeks, Jamaican Jerk Goat Curry and Cashew Butter. I was eager to see if the creativity translated to eatability, which, as we all know, is not a word.

I opted for the Jamaican Jerk Goat Curry for little reason other than the fact that I had never before eaten goat in a sandwich. Also, consisting of coconut milk, habaneros, rice and beans, it appeared to be fit for an unvegan. And it was certainly as delicious as it was creative. Served in a pita, the flavors in this sandwich were nothing less than awesome. The habaneros gave it a great kick, but the flavor of the goat, jerk and curry all make their own marks on my taste buds as well. If Thin Man Sandwich Shop can perfectly fuse flavors like this on all their sandwiches, it will have quite a bright future.

Finding ourselves in Westwood without any idea where to eat, my roommates and I walked into Ambala Dhaba. None of us had looked the place up online, nor had it been recommended, but we were feeling risky.

A look at the menu revealed a whole lot of vegetarian dishes, but also some meaty Indian dishes I had never heard of and was excited to try. Tucked under the glass on the table was their beer special, Bell beer from Uganda for only $3 a glass. I wasn’t sure why Ugandan beer had found itself at an Indian restaurant, but it would definitely be something new for me.

Foodwise, we started with a couple orders of naan bread. One was garlic and one

was chili garlic. I ended up being a big fan of the chili naan, since it offered a kick, but not a huge one. Then it was time for the main courses. I decided to split a couple dishes with the roommie. Our first choice was Chicken Dehraduni, which was chicken cooked with cashews, coconut and mango. For our next choice we decided to be a bit more exotic and ordered some bakra, also known as goat. I had never eaten goat before, so we kept it simple with Bakra Curry.

While waiting for my main courses, I tested out this new beer and was extremely disappointed. It was poorly carbonated, which I could have gotten over if it tasted good, but it did not and for the first time I felt that $3.00 was too much for a beer at a restaurant. I hoped my meal would fare better. Luckily, it did.

The chicken dish was great. The mix of spices with cashews and mangoes made a deliciously complex taste. The goat was also pretty good. I thought it would taste pretty similar to mutton, but it really didn’t. In fact, it was closer to beef than lamb, but still kind of hovered between the two. The curry sauce it was in wasn’t too bad either.

To top off the meal, we ordered some Kulfi, Indian ice cream. It’s different from regular ice cream because it’s extra creamy and extra tasty. It was certainly very different from any other ice cream I’ve had before, and was a good way to finish off dinner at Ambala Dhaba.

As I’m no Indian aficionado, I can’t vouch for the authenticity of any of my dishes, but I can definitely say I enjoyed them thoroughly.