Capital caprine cuisine

There’s a new restaurant in Montrose with unusual food and an even more unusual name. Three Drunken Goats on Honolulu Avenue has a tapas-focused Spanish kitchen. Where did the menu come from? From consulting chef Jason Michaud, who also created the tapas menus at both of the Cobras and Matadors restaurants.

And the name? From a wine-soaked Spanish goat cheese called “drunken goat” and the trio of aforementioned chefs, or maybe it’s executive chef Danny Galvez, or general manager Daniel Sevilla and owner Brandon Kim, who also owned the store Gouda and Vines, which formerly occupied the site.

Which brings up another question: what’s with these names? It’s kind of like punk bands in the ’80s. Frankly, if I were a little more paranoid (check me out in October if John McCain keeps gaining ground), I’d feel like I was taking my life in my hands to go into a place named after poisonous snakes and sadists with swords. Inebriated goats aren’t all that pleasant to contemplate either, but at least they’re small, vegetarian and limited to a triad rather than a whole herd. But I digress.

The restaurant’s been open since April and seems to be doing quite well. We and another couple decided to try it out last Sunday and weren’t disappointed. The interior, a bit cavernous, with long dark-wood tables and eggplant-tinted walls, isn’t exactly cozy. Ceilings are high and painted black. A wine bar is set up at the front of the restaurant, with a TV (tuned to the Olympics, natch) and the open kitchen stretches along the rear. The place seems able to accommodate far more than the stated 86-person capacity.

The menu lists almost 40 items that can be ordered to share, so the most important thing for us was to get four folks to be of one mind. The pitcher of white sangria ($30 — not cheap, but good) helped our decision-making considerably, but it was still difficult. We had to pass up most of the larger plates (like steaks, paella and half-chickens) to concentrate on smaller delicacies to divvy up.
Our first pass netted four dishes: golden beets with hazelnuts, herbed goat cheese and arugula ($9), garlic prawns with pocha beans ($12), piquillo stuffed with idiazabal (north Spanish peppers with smoked sheep cheese — $9) and patata with truffle oil and cabrales (fried potatoes topped with Spanish blue cheese — $7). We were grateful to see that the shrimp were a quartet, which made sharing easy.

The beet salad was perfect, and it was hard to find fault with the others. I especially loved the tubers, although the wonderful piquancy of the cheese blocked any hint of truffle oil. We all liked the shrimp and the meaty beans they were bedded on, and we were favorably impressed with the smoky flavor of the peppers and their molten filling.

Then it was time for some more sangria and some dickering over the next round of dishes. Bacon-wrapped dates with chorizo ($9), grilled octopus with fingerling potato salad and chorizo ($9), pa amb tomaquet (a Catalan open-faced bread, tomato, garlic, olive oil and ham prep; think Spanish bruschetta — $9) and scallops wrapped in jamon serrano with corn remoulade ($15) won out.

The octopus was tender, if a bit rubbery — but what can you expect of a cephalopod with three hearts? The potato salad, laced with spicy sausage, was delightful. Our scallops (alas, only two, so we had to split them up) were plump and sweet, but not nearly as sweet as the corn remoulade on which it was set. It was thumbs up all around for the pa amb tomaquet, which disappeared quickly.

Ditto the dates — I remember dates with bacon as an appetizer my parents used to make, but the addition of chorizo made them even more luscious.

You would think that, with all this food and wine consumed, we would have foregone dessert. Not a chance. The offerings are $6 apiece and include flourless chocolate cake, apple cake, queen of nuts cake, churros, flan and housemade ice creams, including a brandy-chocolate chip flavor.

Despite having lived through the chewy, greasy ropes lurking at room temperature in most fast-food locales, we had to try the upscale churros. Almost celestially light and hot enough to singe the roofs of our mouths, they hardly needed the cuplet of dark chocolate sauce that accompanied. The two strands were quite ample for all of us. A real treat!

Almost equally pleasing, but in a more “adult” fashion, was the nut cake. It was slightly dry, with a crumbly texture, and barely sweet. With it came a hefty scoop of vanilla ice cream, with more than a touch of rum and the rough homemade texture of slushed whipping cream. Fabulous!

Unfortunately, as satisfied as we were with our meal, we know we hardly did justice to the entirety of the restaurant’s menu. Their wine list goes far beyond sangria, including lots of Spanish vintages that would make oenophiles drool. Dessert wines, sherries and ports are also tempting. The cheeses ($4 a portion) include pure chunks of all those that appeared in the tapas we ordered and several more, including the “cabra al vino” after whom the restaurant is named.

But with lots left to sample on our next visit, we four stuffed pigs forced ourselves to say farewell to the Three Drunken Goats who had just joined the ranks of our newest best friends. We’ll be back, little goats, to join you again in celebration of fine food and drink. Till then, adios.