An Evening of Tapas

Last Saturday, I had an AMAZING meal. I wanted to share it with you all this past Monday, but unfortunately I left my camera at home so I didn’t have the pictures to share! Words can only do so much justice when it comes to food, in my opinion. 🙂

I had dinner at Jaleo with my friend Sydney from high school/middle school, who I hadn’t seen in 5 years!! It’s amazing how time flies. Sydney moved to Virginia about an hour away from me a few years ago, and we just finally got around to getting together last week. Crazy.

Her husband Chris joined us for dinner, so I got to play third wheel but it was kind of fun giving him the third degree and asking lots of questions. I’m very direct like that.

I started off with the cod fritters with a honey aioli.

These were warm (out of the fryer) and literally melted in your mouth. The salty cod against the sweet, creamy aioli was just perfect. Chris even liked them and he hates fish! Now that says something.

Sydney started with the seared piquillo peppers stuffed with goat cheese…

Also unreal. The piquillo peppers are almost sweet and go perfect with the tangy goat cheese. The food is so pretty on top of being so delicious, too.

Next up I got the organic wild mushrooms sauteed with garlic and herbs.

They look sort of plain but the flavors were unbelievable. I soaked up every drop of juice (butter I’m sure) with the bread because it was addictive.

Sydney got their famous shrimp sauteed with garlic that was PERFECT.

These shrimp were plump and juicy and doused in butter and garlic.. just the way I like ‘em.

Next up.. dessert!

Three to be exact.

Not sure this was completely necessary, but they sure tasted good.

First up was an apple tart with caramel and vanilla bean ice cream.

This was delicious because it wasn’t too sweet. The apples were almost tart and there was hardly any added sugar so it was nice to taste the fresh apples throughout the dessert.

Then there was a flan.

With orange segments and fresh whipped cream. I feel like people either love or hate flan – its kind of a weird texture for some, but I LOVE it. It’s creamy and basically dissolves on your tongue with each bite. Yum.

And the final thing was a chocolate molten cake, also served with vanilla ice cream.

This was delicious because the middle of the cake was gooey and chocolately. It was the perfect size (not too big even though it looks kind of huge from this angle!) SO good.

Do you like tapas? Do you have a memory of your favorite Spanish meal? I LOVE tapas. If I had things my way, I’d order a sample of almost everything on the menu any time I went out, so tapas are right up my alley. My favorite tapa I’ve ever had was Chicken Croquettes at Jaleo. They are warm and gooey on the inside and crunchy on the outside and come with this unbelievable sauce you (I) would want to bathe in. Things like that make me miss meat… 🙂