Mrs. A and I visited Las Vegas recently. Before the trip, we did some research on restaurant
there and were most impressed by the tapas menu at Jaleo. So we had dinner there on our first night.
It took us a while to find Jaleo on Level 3 of The
Cosmopolitan Hotel. I expected an
enclosed restaurant with a formal entry, but it turned out to be a large
informal place with no wall along its front.
On one side were tall bar tables surrounded by the bar, a huge fire pit,
and an open kitchen for cold dishes. The
kitchen for hot food was hidden in the back.
On the other side were four booths adjacent to the open kitchen, and a
large number of tables. We sat at one of
the booths; leg room was a bit tight, otherwise very comfortable. We had
an excellent view watching the chefs preparing cured meat dishes and
salads.
Jaleo was casual and lively. Its décor was playful. With pop music playing in the background, diners talking inside the restaurant, noises coming from the outside, and
sound bouncing from all its hard surfaces, the noise level surprisingly did not bother us at all.
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| Jaleo Las Vegas front |
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| Jaleo Las Vegas bar area |
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| Jaleo Las Vegas dining area |
Being unfamiliar with Spanish wine, I ordered a bottle of
cava – the Spanish sparkling wine. We took our waitress’ recommendation for a Raventós i Blanc 'de Nit' Rose 2009. It went
well with our food.
We started with the seleccion de jamones - Spanish ham
sampling plate - with jamon Serrano, jamon Iberico (aged 1 year), jamon Iberico de Bellota (aged 3 years),
all from the producer Fremin, and pan de cristal con tomate fresco, the
crispy toasted bread brushed with fresh tomato for eating jamon with. I was surprised that Jaleo used a slicer instead of slicing the ham the traditional way by hand. The Serrano ham was the leanest, and not as
flavorful as the Iberico ham. Mrs. A
liked the jamon Iberico the best, and I preferred the jamon Iberico de Bellota,
which was deeper in color as well as in flavor.
The bread was a little soggy though the garlic tomato sauce was tasty.
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From the left: jamon Serrano, jamon Iberico,
jamon Iberico de Bellota, pan de cristal con tomate fresc
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While I was busy eating ham and tasting the cava, the huevo frito con caviar (fried egg with caviar) arrived. It was a beautiful ball of fried egg sitting
on onion confit and topped with a heap of caviar. The food runner immediately cut up the egg
into tiny little pieces and mixed vigorously the runny yolk, soft egg whites and
everything else together. That was a
good way to enjoy the dish, though I would rather do the cutting and mixing
myself. Runny egg yolk with a glob of caviar was velvety salty heaven.
Arrived next was calamares en su tinta con alcachofas y
cebollitas - seared fresh
squids with squid ink sauce, artichokes and pearl onions. The small squids looked like Japanese hotaru ika and they were tasty. The salty squid ink enhanced their
flavor. We were told later by the chef
that all the guts were left inside the bodies of the squids, which is also the
way Japanese eat hotaru ika. Delicious!!
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| Seared fresh squids with squid ink sauce, artichokes and pearl onions |
The canelones traditionales de cerdo y higado de
pato con salsa béchamel (pork and foie gras canelones with béchamel
sauce) was not what I expected. I
thought it would be like the Italian pasta tubes. The version at Jaleo was moist shredded pork
in a gratin dish under a sheet of small pasta squares, covered with béchamel
sauce, sprinkled with cheese and browned in the oven, in the tradition of
Catalan. The smoothness and juiciness of
the pork indicated the presence of some foie gras. It was a very nice dish.
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| Pork and foie gras canelones with béchamel sauce |
My dessert was ‘Gin y Tonic’, a gin and tonic
sorbet with fizzy tonic ‘espuma’, lemon and aromatics. I gather that Chef José Andrés likes gin and
tonic as it shows up here and there on his menus at Jaleo and his other
restaurants. I liked gin and tonic myself too. Mrs. A was not impressed
with the ‘classic Spanish coffee’.
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| Gin and tonic sorbet |
After dinner, Chef Carlos Cruz Santos came out from the
kitchen to greet us. He was very
friendly and spent time explaining some of the dishes to us. He said we missed Chef José Andrés by a week; he was there
making paella and having great fun with the kitchen. We told him that we enjoyed our dinner very
much. As there were many items on the menu we wanted
to try, we would be returning the following evening. We also mentioned that our third dinner at
Vegas would be at é by José Andrés, a
micro-restaurant hidden inside Jaleo.
Thus three nights of José
Andrés.
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| Chef Carlos Cruz Santos |
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