Little Goat — Restaurant in Town of Rhinebeck

I've been eager to try Little Goat since the press blitz began some months ago. I regretted going shortly after walking in.

Not that Rhinebeck needs another Italian menu. But all the hype made me curious. Plus I love to dine out. I'm a regular at local spots including Market Street, Le Petit Bistro and Kips Tavern.

It was 1 p.m. on a Sunday and the brunch crowd was bustling. I was seated at the bar next to a nice looking straight couple when the gentleman bartender asked me what I wanted to drink. I glanced at the menu and selected a cold brew and a Bloody Mary.

"We're out of Bloody Mary," he said. "Oh no!" I exclaimed with a smile, "There should be a sign on the door." "Can I get you something else?" he asked, "We have a full bar." "I'll start with the cold brew and take another look at the menu."

When the cold brew came, served by a young woman, she noted they were out of the half and half I'd requested. "This is whole milk," she said.

When the bartender returned, I asked him for a Paloma.

"We don't have grapefruit juice," he said. "We're not really set up for brunch."

"Oh, I was about to order an egg sandwich," I told him, confused by his comment. He looked at me with unfriendly eyes. Uncomfortable, I told him I thought I should probably leave.

"This has been an unpleasant experience," I said. He agreed.

When I walked out, I asked a young woman behind the front counter. She told me his...

Walking into the restaurant, we waited for someone to pay attention to us. We stood there for a while with nobody at the desk and then asked behind the counter if we needed to seat ourselves, whereupon a man came out and very snootily, queried “your name?” No hello, just the question. His attitude was unpleasant to say the least. We did not have a reservation and it was 12 o’clock lunchtime on a Thursday so we really didn’t think we needed one. Then we were told that there were no tables available even though most of the tables in the restaurant were empty. When we acted surprised at the news, he explained that people would be showing up in 15 minutes to claim their tables. Fine. We were on our way out the door when he came back to us and told us that if we could finish in one hour, we could be seated. We decided to stay. Server asked if we wanted sparkling or still water. I asked for sparkling. A very large bottle of sparkling water appeared on the table. We ordered. The food came. The server was delightful. The food was ok, not great. We ended up being charged $20(!!) for the bottle of sparkling water, which we weren’t told when we ordered it. This was a big mistake. It left me with a bad taste (no pun intended) in my mouth. The check for two sandwiches, two coffees and the sparkling water came to $68. You decide if it...

I had been to this restaurant under prior management and had been disappointed so I was curious to revisit. The food was a lot better than I had expected, the service good (not great), and the ambience was very attractive with the temporary noise leve: a group of 5 sitting next to us seemed unaware that their volume made it impossible for anyone near them to hear themselves speak. Luckily, they left after half an hour, and from that point, our meal was very enjoyable.

The carrot “course” was particularly delicious and generous in proportion. The trout was Perfectly cooked w a fabulous crispy skin on top. Unfortunately, my glass of white wine was not Chilled when it first came, nor was the new bottle. They brought ice.

The friendly waitress had to be prompted to offer us dessert And refill our tiny water Glasses . The bathroom had run out of toilet paper. The lighting and atmosphere was...