The Meatball Shop 84 Stanton Street, New York, NY 10002 just opened a couple of weeks ago but they seem to have things in good working order. Waitstaff is friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. The menus are mark-your-own (like at Akti Seafood Restaurant), but all the combination and possibilities have been thought out so that choices are clear and easy. Each person gets their own menu so you can all get acquainted with the menu at the same. You do have to share an erasable marker though.
Enough about throwbacks to elementary school, let’s talk meatballs. There’s six meatballs: classic beef, spicy pork, chicken, salmon, vegetable, and a weekly special. There’s four sauces: classic tomato, spicy meat sauce, mushroom gravy, and parmesan cream. That’s 24 different possibilities, but then you can have them as is, with sides or sides under them, as sliders, as heroes, or as smashes (2 balls on a brioche bun with sauce and cheese, with side salad). The picking process was actually fun, and with helpful steering from our waitress, my four-person party tried a lot of stuff.
We had the Vegetable Meatballs with Spicy Meat Sauce. They were dense and cold in the center so I’d skip (I think this is out for vegetarians), but the rest were good: pork meatballs with tomato sauce, chicken meatballs with parmesan cream sauce, and the weekly special was Corned Beef and Cabbage meatballs. We had the last as a smash with mushroom gravy and provolone cheese. They all taste pretty much as expected.
The risotto was risotto, not special, not bad. The white beans were getting on the extra soft side but flavorful.
The market salad of arugula, beets, tangerine, and walnuts was super fresh, lightly dressed, elegant for a meatball joint. The roasted veggies of the day was fennel with raisins and walnuts. It was almost good, but too much burnt fennel.
The prices are great for a hearty meal and you won’t feel as heavy as you might expect; but it’s not worthy of a special trip. This is more of a “heck, we’re in the neighborhood” kind of meal.
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I must have been living in a cave because i’ve never heard of that place.
Now i want to go like.. right now!
Whyyyy are you doing this to me!?
yahh! good meat balls!
Good heavens. How did you ever choose your combinations? I would have wanted to try a bunch!
it’s kinda crazy all the “one food” restaurants that have been popping up over the past couple years.
mac & cheese, meatballs, roast beef, fries
what’s next?
stick it to your bones. ha.
what a great idea for a restaurant–i could go every day and have an entirely new experience. excellent.
Zenchef, good news is you can go.
Barbara, that’s why I always gather friends to go together.
Steve, I would say it’s more than a couple of years but I like the trend. What’s next? I hope someone opens a uni shop. =)
an all foie gras restaurant?
Steve, as tempting as that sounds, I think that would be too much in one sitting.
Been itching to go to this place… I hear they have custom ice cream cookie sandwiches now… gots to try that.
thesilverspork, I wanted to try the ice cream sandwiches ( I love ice cream sandwiches!) but we were heading somewhere else afterward so I had to leave a little stomach space