my favorite way to share a meal is with a large table of friends, sharing ever-flowing plates of hot tapas and pitchers of rich, red sangria, stories and laughter flooding the atmosphere. this was what i experienced while in madrid,spainlast year, when a friend took me outside of the city to a small, dimly lit tapas bar to join 20+ of her friends in celebration of a birthday. their tradition, which i hope to steal one day, is for the group to purchase a birthday gift for the guest of honor and he/she takes the entire tab. we ate for at least 4 hours, experiencing sobremesa , the spanish term for sitting around a table post-meal and relaxing through conversation. while i haven’t visitedspainyet this year, i was able to virtually travel there with the fun, adventurous #dctravelblogger group this weekend at jaleo in crystal city . we indulged in multiple tapas and pitchers of sangria, sharing conversations on travel and personal stories as head chef domenick torlucci demonstrated how to make a few dishes. i arrived halfway through a demonstration of preparing aceitunas ‘ferran adrià ’, or liquid olives, which tasted like an olive soaked in olive oil with a hint of mustard which tasted citrusy once swallowed. the meal continued with, my all-time guilty pleasure, jamón ibérico – paired, of course, with picos to munch on with the sangria. following that were camarones de cádiz con huevo frito , fried baby shrimp with a sunny-side-up egg on top that we cracked open and mixed. delicious. my favorite dish was the pan de cristal con salmon anumado y huevo duro , smoked salmon on top of crusty bread with a hardboiled egg, goat cheese, and capers in-between. the chef also introduced us to asparagus cooked to perfection, drenched in a nutty sauce; a combination i’ve never thought of before. the presa ibérico de bellote , or grilled boneless shoulder from an i bérico pig, was perfectly tender and juicy, the pairings exquisite. the final entrée was, of course, paella , bro