text: Upon arriving at Jaleo I was sure we were in for a HUGE treat The place was jampacked I LOVE Tapas having lived in Spain for a short time and the hostess was absolutely AWESOME and managed to get us a private room for my sisters st birthday I have to be honest the meal turned out to be a pretty big disappointment I probably would not recommend this to anyone with limited time in Vegas although I have to say I would probably go back and try different menu items Most restaurants deserve a second chancennSERVICE This was one of the main reasons I did not end up loving Jaleo The hostess was GREAT she worked some magic and got us a private room that does not take reservations and she checked in while we were waiting to provide us updates on timing When we sat down we had two servers assigned to our room The main waitress was nice but steamrolled our decisionmaking process Having lived in Spain I had some definite opinions on what we should order and I could hardly get a word in edgewise She also failed to get drink orders from everyone and when I tried to speak up to order she talked right over me Finally another member of my group tapped her on the arm to let her know she had not gotten a drink order from me While I knew what the dishes were like the rest of my group was not acquainted with many of the menu items When asked for what she would recommend the waitress blew through several items so quickly that my friends could not even keep up to locate them on the menu It did not help that she used the Spanish names instead of describing what they were in English Her initial service left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the mealnnFOOD One thing about Jaleo this is one authentic tapas menu I was REALLY impressed It is a huge menu and there are so many things on it that most Americanized tapas joints would not include The gazpacho was a HUGE hit at our table although difficult to share because it was served in one dish The garlic shrimp was pretty good although a member of our table got one of those awkward bad shrimp something I do not think can be avoided The peppers stuffed with goat cheese my selection turned out to be a hit despite no one else seeming interested in it from the beginning Definitely order that if you go I would pass on either of the croquettes but I never liked them in Spain either so that may just be a me thing They were served in a Camper tennis shoe which was SUPER cute We loved that although the waitress had zero explanation for it Lame One thing I would definitely NOT order again was the beef paella It was some of the worst meat in the paella that I have ever had another member of our group could not eat meat for the next two days because she was so grossed out Plus it was SO expensive Be sure to check the price on paella before you orderand I would go with more tapas instead Or maybe try the seafood paellannDRINKS One regret from our group we wish we had ordered a carafe of sangria Instead some of us had wine and some had cocktails My Whiskey de Verano was AWESOME and I would recommend it to others Good drink options No problems herennATMOSPHERE The restaurant which is totally open on one side is pretty upbeat and busy It was PACKED on a Thursday at But like I said we had the private room It was AWESOME It had glass doors so the noise was kept out and ours was kept in My friends who were facing the doors though said waiters and waitresses kept staring at us through the doors which was a little awkward Oh well Deal with it the room was great It even had a lazy susan on the table to help share tapasnnOVERALL Like I said I would go back here again to give the authentic Spanish menu another try But I would not go for a special occasion or with a HUGE group I would order the sangria and I would go with lower expectations This was just an okay meal for me in Vegas I have had better meals