For Hortensia Rodríguez there is no better goat than the lineman. Although she tries to soften the forcefulness of her words with a broad smile, she does not give her arm to twist or retract. There is no one like the lineman goat. There isn’t, there won’t be.
Born and raised in Montecristi, Hortensia, knows very well the quality of the meat produced in her province.
“We believe it is the best because it eats oregano,” she is quick to answer when asked about the reasons that make the region’s goat the most appreciated in Dominican cuisine.
Since its birth in 2009, the Parador has served as a refuge for those who seek not only to satisfy their appetite, but also to offer their palates the mythical delicacy that characterizes the province.In the Kelvin dining room, on one side of the Duarte highway, there is not a minute of silence. The orchestra of the kitchen, which rushes to have the first dishes of the afternoon available to the diners, is only overshadowed by the merciless run of the vehicles that pass by. The smells begin to emerge. It is 11 o’clock in the morning.
Hortensia smiles again: “if you come and try it, you will want to come back”.
From the gray and dusty snake that extends to the Morro and mutates, but not before crossing the very heart of the city in the northwest of the country, a pickup truck detaches and the first customers of the already dying morning dismount from it.
There were no surprises at the moment of choosing the food: no one dared, by taste or by modesty, to ask for anything other than the famous Montecristi meat. Nothing is missing on the tray that the waitress carefully balances.
Service by service, the table is bursting with a gastronomic spectacle for all the senses: beans, white rice, guineítos… and in the center of the table, two of the ways of preparing goat: guisao’ and baked.
Kelvin is a space that, without needing much analysis, is “typical”, or if you prefer “classic”. With guano and wooden chairs, an aluzinc ceiling and tables covered with plastic tablecloths, the place evokes the delights of the humble Dominican decoration.
It is close to one o’clock in the afternoon, and the interior is already full of diners. One group finishes lunch, and as the sun rises, it bathes their bodies. Another replaces it in a few minutes. They pull up the chairs and arrange their bodies. Again, no one dares to order a dish that is not .
“Everyone has their own little trick – to prepare the goat -“, assures Hortensia. She goes over the details of the seasoning: recaito, garlic and aji gusto top the list, and although they already “come seasoned”, oregano. Everything is mixed and left to cook in its own juices.
“If you don’t wash the meat well, that smell will come out and it will taste like that,” he says. For this, adds the restaurant manager diligently, the orange does an excellent job, but there is one thing that, although it is not a trick, is – says Hortensia with great confidence – fundamental for the taste to be the desired one: washing the meat, especially if it is a goat that is not very tender. This avoids the smell of “cojú” goat, an aroma that she laughingly describes as “weird”.
