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.

As you drive through the Tunnel of Trees in Northern Michigan, you get the feeling that it could go on forever, that there could literally be no end to the trees. And most likely that was actually what Michigan was like a few hundred years ago. But, the tunnel ends eventually and the light at the end of that tunnel is the Legs Inn, which feels out of place in what can easily be referred to as the middle of nowhere.

You see, Legs Inn was put together by a guy who immigrated from Poland to Michigan back in the 1920s and was even adopted as an honorary Indian by the local tribe. The Inn has had ups and downs, including an unfortunate period as a biker bar (and not one of the cool ones), but is currently a beautiful sprawling complex with a hell of a view of Lake Michigan. Oh, and the food is all about those Polish origins.

I ordered up the Old World Sampler from the appetizer menu for myself, because it looked too damn good. It came with three pierogies, kabanosy (kielbasa’s skinnier cousin), bigos (hunter’s stew) and a couple of koytka (potato dumplings). For my pierogies I opted for two classic potato and cheese and one ground beef.

My dish arrived and almost looked perfect. I say almost because the bigos looked like more of a gatherer’s stew than a hunter’s, with much more sauerkraut than ground up meat and sausage. And while the meat was good, the stew left a lot to be desired. Thus, I was left spending most of my stomach space on the pierogies and kabanosy. The pierogies were nothing short of delicious, hitting all the right spots. I was glad I went with two potato and cheese as opposed to ground beef despite my blog’s name because it just tastes right. As for the sausage, I enjoyed it, but it was plain to see how kielbasa became the dominant Polish sausage in the zeitgeist. Oh, and the kotyka were essentially gnocchi and that meant they were delicious despite there only being a couple of them.

The Legs Inn is a special place, serving up some special food. While I appreciated being able to sample a few different dishes, on my inevitable return I’ll dive head first into pierogies and kielbasas, leaving the rest of the Polish world behind.