Washington DC: Jaleo (May 2012)

When my spouse and I visited DC in May of 2012, we knew for certain that we wanted to dine at a Jose Andres restaurant (ThinkFoodGroup). Of course, Minibar was at the top of our list, but we only made it as far as the wait list for one of the two nights that we had available. (And even then, we were told that Minibar might be completely closed that weekend because the chefs might be needed to open Jose Andres’ restaurant in the SLS Hotel in South Beach instead.) So we looked at Andres’ other options. Jaleo wasn’t at the top of the list because it was more “chain-like” than Oyamel, Zaytinya, or America Eats, with additional locations in Bethesda and Arlington; however, it seemed to have the most interesting food of those restaurants. You can reserve a table at most of the Andres restaurants (except Minibar) via Open Table. We arrived about 30 minutes early for our reservation, and although they agreed to seat us, we were positioned in the back of the restaurant at a very small table for 2, and we ordered a lot of courses which didn’t quite fit on the small table. The decor is interesting. We had a decent meal here, and we would return to try some of the other dishes. It seemed like other diners had either eaten here (or at another location) before and were familiar with the menu, making wiser choices than we did.