strawberries in paris

Our Palates were Jumping for Joy at Jaleo

July 4, 2011 at 7:00 am | Posted in Cookbooks, Dessert, Dinner, Travels | 5 Comments

How’s that for alliteration?? Speaking of jumping, I am surmising that last night (aka Marfi’s wedding) the entire Hall clan was jumping (aka dancing) for two straight hours! And boy are we sore!! More pictures to come from that soon!

And while I am talking about celebrations, Happy Fourth of July everyone!!!  I thank God that I was born in this great country.

So let’s jump back about a week ago to Laurita and my day trip to DC! We had fun at the BBQ Festival and then wandered over to the Capitol and took some cool shots (yay for Wordless Wednesday!), then relaxed at the arboretum followed by an ice cream truck stop and visit to the National Museum of the American Indian! Then I realized that Jaleo, a restaurant that I first visited when I took Spanish in high school (Gracias Señora Lange!) was right around the corner! And a way to salute my sister and her Spanish learning this summer and soon to be Spanish teaching adventure this fall, we went there for dinner!

And it was extra cool going here for dinner after Cookbook club had done his cookbook back in January!

We got there right at 5 pm. Good thing because it started to fill up right after that! We got a cute little two top and then were brought some bread, yummmm. And with the olive oil they place a fresh sprig of rosemary and some crushed garlic. Once the waiter left the table I tried to crush the garlic a little more. Love me some garlic, and since I knew I wouldn’t be seeing abuelita anytime soon, I ate up! (She loathes the smell of garlic on our breath. It’s pretty amusing).

And then we ordered a glass of sangria each! Damn good sangria, not too sweet, but not too liquor”y” either.  Felt good after walking around in the heat all afternoon.

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Then we got to our meal! Once I spotted Gazpacho estilo Algeciras on the menu, I knew we would both each love a bowl!  ‘Classic chilled Spanish soup made with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, bread and sharpened with Sherry vinegar’.

They brought two bowls with different accoutrements  on the bottom. I took one look and thought, so this soup is deconstructed???  The waiter noticed my facial expression and started laughing and then I looked up and saw two carafes of gazpacho liquid on his serving tray and I started laughing. The soup was coming silly Elizabeth!

Perfect and fancy gazpacho. The heirloom cherry tomatoes were so good and so were the perfectly tiny garlic croutons in the soup. Cold heaven in a bowl!

Then we started with some classic tapas. ‘Chistorra envuelta en patata frita – Slightly spicy chorizo wrapped in a crispy potato.’ I had had these babies before and I knew Laurita would love them! Well maybe I loved em.. By the last one she just ate the chip off and I finished off the chorizo.

The next tapa was ‘Croquetas de Jamón Serrano – Traditional Serrano ham fritters’. I had to order these too because this was the recipe I did from Jose’s cookbook and I wanted to see how mine compared.  WELLLLLLL, his were better! In terms of the fine coating of breading on the outside, but the fillings tasted the same! Apparently Maria and I take a too heavy hand to breading croquetas! Same flavor just different consistency…

And the filling, delicious creaminess with pieces of good ham. yummmmmm

The last dish we ordered was the ‘Rossejat’ – Traditional ‘paella’ of fried pasta with shrimp.  I wanted Laurita to try a sample of paella, and the fried pasta part of the dish sounded good to me so we went with it. The only problem is that the dish was soooo fishy!

Lucky for us, they serve it with this garlic aioli and once that was mixed in with the pasta it tasted sooooo good and very much edible.

Hooray for garlic again! And because we were feeling gluttonous, we ordered a wee bit of dessert. A trio of ice creams… I actually think it was just two ice creams (strawberry and coffee).

The biscuit had hazelnuts and the coffee ice cream had such strong coffee flavor, we loved it. And of course the strawberry was delicious.

Yay for Spanish dinner with sista!!! Here’s hoping she learns lots and lots of spanish this summer with her three class/week schedule with “Teacher” Abuelito.

I love this restaurant. The service is perfect, the food is perfect and so was the company, go check it out!