Another Cook in the Kitchen: Small plate after small plate at Jaleo

Sorry for the long gap between posts, but I had quite a lot of work and birthday responsibilities in this past week! One of them, fortunately, was dining at Jose Andres' Jaleo. A tapas restaurant that also serves paella, this restaurant is a good choice for a group willing to share. And thankfully, that's what we were!

After grabbing a few pitchers of sangria (watery, sad to say), we sat down at our table and were served bread with olive oil seasoned with a rosemary spring and garlic clove (WAY better if you crush open the garlic!).

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

It's going to be hard for me to run down everything that was ordered, so I'll just go over some stand out plates. Croquettes are always delicious at every tapas place ever. End of story! How hard it is to mess up something deep fried? Pretty hard. Jaleo was no exception. These were stuffed with chicken and were very moist.

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

As I've said before in my blog, I'm not an egg lover. So when I took my first bite of the Spanish tortilla, my expectations were low. Though I'd seen a Made in Spain on PBS before where Andres dedicated a lot of the show to tortillas, and it did make me wonder if there was something I was doing wrong. That answer is a resounding "Yes!" I could eat plate after plate of these potato and onion-infused eggs. I don't think I've ever had a fluffier egg.

The seafood dishes were good but were overshadowed by the extremely traditional tapas. I wonder now how sublime the entire meal could have been if I'd only ordered off the tapas clasicas part of the menu.

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

Another stand out dish was the cauliflower with dates and olives. I'm not even a cauliflower fan, but I love keeping dried fruit around the house and olives have always been a staple for me. And while it's hard to imagine what dates with olives must taste like, I can assure you it's overall sweet and delicious.

After our tapas were done, our paella arrived. Served in giant traditional paella pans, the chicken and assorted mushroom paella was the stand out of the two plates. And I'm sad to say, the seafood once again faltered. I was so happy to see the shrimp with heads in tact, but the overall dish was perhaps the saltiest thing I've ever been served in a non-Asian restaurant, which sadly made it inedible.

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

For my post-dinner birthday treat, I ordered the flan, served with Catalan cream and oranges. It was milky and perfect. The cream was the perfect mix of light and sweet, and the dish overall was easy to eat even on our extremely full stomachs.