Alero -- Cleveland Park

I have nothing against Alero. The Cleveland Park location has a cozy interior for warming up in winter, and a pleasant deck for slurping decent margaritas in the summer. Those features can make up for ho-hum Mexican food. But last week I ventured beyond the Mexican standards to try the ceviche (strictly speaking a Peruvian dish) and the spare rib fajitas (which turned out to be an unhappy marriage of Chinese sweet and sour flavors with Mexican style grilled onions and peppers inside a cardboard textured, too-small pancake). My wrathful eye is particularly trained on the mealy ceviche and its distasteful spices. This dish depends on its freshness and tart lime and seafood flavors, neither of which were delivered here. Not even two pitchers of margaritas on a lovely summer evening could wash away the memory of inedibility, which lingered into the next day.  The loss of Sabores from the neighborhood is felt ever more acutely.

Antoinette Id