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| - I've spent a reasonable amount of time in Barcelona recently learning to understand the whole tapas thing, and to a lesser extent paella. There are a lot of "standards" that show up in every tapas place, in a good way. I've been fortunate to have a friend who is one of the few people whose palate I completely trust send me a few places when I was in Barcelona. They were all standouts. There is a magic to the red shrimp, or local langoustines, cooked up just hours after being caught that can never be duplicated anywhere away from the bay where they are caught.
Well, that was a long introduction. It's also everything that's right with Jaleo. They take the finest of Spanish tapas that can be reproduced at a level equal to, or better, than you will find in the best places in Spain, and leave out the ones that can't be duplicated properly. Skip the langoustine, squid, shrimp, and similar. Provide amazing tomato bread with absolute top quality Jamón ibérico de bellota. Anchovies in olive oil, olives, and cheeses. After a few of those, get the paella that's as good as the best in Spain.
The room is very pretty, but loud. The service excellent. There was a number of nice wines with big markups instead of outrageous markups.
It was the closest we could get taking my adult kid and wife to Spain without having been able to take them there.
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