Day 5: Dinner at Jaleo

© Courtesy of Tom Colicchio
Dinner at Jaleo

Editor's note: Tom Colicchio, the head judge on Bravo's Top Chef (and a Food & Wine Best New Chef 1991), will be blogging every day this week about his road trip from Atlanta.

Since we were planning to stay in DC for the night, Jose Andres encouraged us to have dinner at one of his restaurants. Although minibar at Café Atlantico is the talk of the town in Washington right now, I was in the mood for paella so we opted for Jose's bar and tapas joint, Jaleo.

Jaleo has been open for years and yet it's always festive and buzzing. Two highlights of our meal were a delicious arroz negro paella and lomo iberico, a salt-roasted pork tenderloin. Jose joined us for the second half of the meal, and it was great to have a chance to catch up with a good friend I don't see often enough.