jaleo

bad service. had dinner here on 5/16/09 and their service was third rate. the waiter disappeared.foodis just dumped on the table. have had better tapas in portland. i have eaten here before and the service andfoodwere better. i think they have slipped and are getting by on their past reputation. management needs to be held accountable.

great (wine) experience. several friends and i met at this location a couple of weeks ago and had a wonderful time there. having previously lived in dc, i had already been to the capitol-area location and more or less knew what to expect. first of all, the space will surprise you if you're used to their other locations. what it lacked in whitewashed charm, it more than made up for in modern grandeur. the highlight of our evening was the oenophilic passion of their beverage director, jill zimorski. for transparency's sake, i should admit that jill and i worked together about a decade ago at a great, now-defunct, french restaurant in charlottesville, so i expected her highly-informed approach to our wine service. jill steered us to multiple bottles of perfectly-pairing and unique wines - and gave us great insight into why these were such interesting bottles. thefoodand table service were much more than adequate as well. if / when i am back in this part of northern va, i will certainly make it a point to return.

great food, terrible restaurant. we've been here before so i know thefoodis good. however. we made a reservation for 4 people for 730, arrived on time, and proceeded to wait for 35 minutes because "our table wasn't ready". if you're not going to adhere to reservations, don't take them.

april 12, 2015 evan #dctravelblogger , crystal city , jaleo leave a comment jaleo crystal city   [this is post #004 towards #100daysoffoodblogging , our goal to do 100 posts in 100 days as part of the 100 day project .] if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to attend a blogger meet-up, i’ve got the dirty secrets right here in this very post. yup. it’s like general hospital up in this crazy blogger world. betrayal, murder, paternity tests… okay, aside from maybe stealing someone’s sangria, there wasn’t any soap opera drama.  and kinda hard for there to be any secrets when everything is tweeted or instagramed the second it happens. such is life for a blogger. anyway, jessica at the dining traveler was kind enough to set up a brunch at jaleo crystal city  for dc/va/md-based bloggers. most of the attendees have travel blogs, but a few of usfoodbloggers snuck in and there were even a few fashion-focused folks as well. it was a great mix and i’m happy to have made some new friends in the local blogging community. i’ll get to jaleo’s phenomenal food in a second, but it goes without saying that the people are what made the event successful. for fear of leaving someone out, i’m not going to attempt to list everyone, so check out the hashtag #dctravelblogger on twitter or instagram to find the folks who partook in the fun. it was great to share stories of gumbo, dc traffic, blog traffic, dc weather, cocktails, food,

okay place...it is however an spanish restaurant where nobody speaks spanish and most people working there is asian. not a true experience. tapas are served on regular plates, something that would not happen on the worst restaurant in spain...thefooditself is okay but nothing special...

bad, very bad. before i talk about our experience in this restaurant i have to say that we love the cuisine jose andres presented tofoodlovers in his other restaurants like zaytinia and (unfortunately closed) cafe atlantico.
we also had an ok experience in his oyamel.
but in this jaleo location we had a very disappointing experiences and had it twice (i don't think there will be any more because we've decided that enough is enough)
now to the point:
ambiance - nice
food - promising in menu descriptions but never delivered anything but disappointments in more or less degree depending from the dish. most of the sauteed or roasted dishes are drenched in oil of very bad quality. even in "endives, goat cheese, oranges and almonds" they managed to pour so much oil it was almost inedible. we had an impression that oil is the main component of their dishes. speaking of taste it wasn't present in any dish we've tried except of beet soup (that was ok but definitely wasn't worth $9.50 they charge for it). the dessert ("apple charlotte") was basically dough stuffed with applesauce on the top of which was half melted ice cream. ugh! our impression was we are sitting in an italian restaurant of poor quality southern italian cuisine. their was nothing that reminded us of a wonderful spain tapas with flavorful sauces and refreshing taste of unique and creative small miracles that are happening in your mouth with every bite. that kind of spanish tapas we've experienced in dali restaurant in boston and loooved it.
i think if jose andres tasted the kind offoodthat his chefs "create" as spanish tapas he would be ashamed for the way his native cuisine is presented here. but he probably haven't been visiting this restaurant for a long time.
service - pretentiously "nice", intimidating with pushing their opinions about dishes when not even being asked, absent and ignorant when needed, not friendly and all together not professional starting from the hostess and finishing with the waiters. as i mentioned we've been there twice and both times with the different staff we experienced the same kind of service.
value - not good for an experience we had (5 dishes + 1 dessert + 1 coffee + 1 tea = $75 all including)
conclusion - not recommended (particularly if you are a foodie)

the experience was much as i expected: swanky and sophisticated, with lots of small plates to share. with good, clean flavors, thefoodwas quite tasty, even if not as gritty as i usually prefer. here’s some of what we tried, starting with apple and fennel salad with manchego cheese, walnuts, and sherry dressing:

this is a great place to go in the group because everybody gets to try different things. greatfoodand you can sit outside. try the croquet as de pollo aka chicken or spinach with pine nuts and raisens

food was truly stellar and service was spot on. great date place, givenfoodgenerally should be picked together and talked about. definately would go back.

recommend!. pretty big fan of this place. definitely hard to find something that doesn't appease your palate with such an extensive menu. my husband and i went there while in town for our anniversary. this place was packed as it was a saturday night. we were seated at an ok table... now, we're both in the restaurant industry and know the irritants that come along with it... changing tables being one. we saw one little corner table, secluded to the side and after already being greeted and waited on, we asked if we could change. totally accomadating, nice, and incredibably service friendly.foodwas great and service wonderful. with the busyiness of it all, we were a little worried but it was awesome.

worstfoodever they can not cook potatos and theirfoodharley has any flavor.

great food; strange service. we were a party of four with 6:30 pm reservations on a saturday night of restaurant week. the place was already packed. two of us arrived at 6:29 pm and the host wouldn't seat us until the entire party had arrived. i know that restaurants don't want to have large tables occupied and then have no shows but for a party of four that is unlikely and having to stand in the doorway was not a good start to the evening. had i been seated at a table i would have ordered wine while i waited. instead i had to stand in a crowded area in front of the entry door, blocking the way of other restaurant guests.

the selections on the restaurant week menu were excellent and we had a wide variety of tapas. nothing disappointed and, having lived in spain, i found thefoodto be authentic with a twist.

however, and this may have been a result of the restaurant week menu, they required that we order everything at once and then they randomly and quickly brought all the tapas to the table. that is absolutely wrong at a tapas restaurant. you should make a selection of your first round of tapas, have an opportunity to leisurely eat them, discuss them, and make your selections for the next round. their service model greatly reduced our enjoyment of our experience and their profit. if we had been able to linger over each round of tapas more wine would have been consumed, thus increasing their profit margin. we were dining with people who had not had tapas before and they found thefoodpresentation to be totally confusing and off-putting, and i certainly couldn't explain it since i'd never experienced anything like it in spain.

i would go again to jaleo, but i would be insistent on having the service my way, the spanish way. this felt like an assembly line, not a dining experience.