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It was a Monday night, and I decided to venture outside of my East Midtown locale. Living two blocks away from where you work is convenient, but the idea of having my entire life within an eighth-mile radius can be stifling, not to mention that 47th street east of Park Avenue is not the liveliest of neighborhoods after 9:00 PM. I went straight from work to a friend's apartment on the Lower East Side, which has grown to be one of my favorite areas of the city. Last winter, I spent a few nights at The Hotel on Rivington, and since then it's been like a long-distance relationship; I love the area but rarely have the time or patience to travel to that neck of the woods. This past Monday was an exception, though, as I had worked until 11:30 PM and was ready for a change of scenery.
After relaxing with some friends, new and old, at this LES apartment, I remembered that I hadn't eaten dinner that evening. Mind you, it was now 1:00 AM on a Monday night, and there weren't many options that satisfy my increasingly high dining standards. My friends and I did, however, stumble upon a gem called Meatball Shop.
Meatball Shop is a new concept restaurant that allows you to mix and match meatballs (not just beef; they also have chicken, vegetable, and veal) with a variety of sauces and presentations. For example, you can have your meatballs plain, as a slider, on a brioche bun, etc., etc. In the middle of the restaurant there is a long, communal table, which encourages the nouveau-hipster atmosphere that is almost as pungent as the meatballs themselves. The menus are laminated and rewriteable, dry-erase markers included. Of course, the menu sparked much conversation, and we soon realized that there are an endless amount of puns to be made about the restaurant.
The bottom part of the menu is cut off to conceal the obscene pictures I drew, which seemed all too fitting for a place like this. Statements like, "How do you like your balls?" and, "Three balls? That's weird," were thrown around liberally, and our tattoo-sleeved waitress didn't mind joining in with us. She recommended the tastiest balls, the best sauce for our balls, and explained that she, too, was a lover of balls of all sorts.After marking up the menu, my friends and I received our meatballs. First to be delected were four beef meatballs in a spicy meat sauce with parmesan cheese and focaccia bread. The balls literally melted in my mouth.
If I hadn't devoured the bread, I would have used some to scoop up the cheesy remains of my meatball aftermath. Below was my second serving of ball(s), a chicken ball with mushroom sauce.
This doesn't look as appetizing as the first, and to be frank, it wasn't. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 7.5, compared to my first course, which I'd give a 9.5. I think I learned my lesson - meatballs are meatballs for a reason...Although I would like to sample the vegetable or veal balls (coincidentally, I had feasted upon veal meatballs at ABC Kitchen the night before).
New York City has an increasingly popular market for niche restaurants with limited menus. You've got Meatball Shop, Krums (and every other unnecessary cupcake shop - although I won't pretend to be averse to the tasty little treats), and that rice pudding place in SoHo (although I think that made most of its revenue from an underground drug ring, but I digress...). I wonder how long it will take before we begin to see trendy Spam (you know - it's "ham in a can") bars sprout up throughout the city. It seems that entrepreneurs can make any concept turn to gold with the right chef behind their idea, and as far as niche establishments go, Meatball Shop is exemplary of that theory. In fact, several hours earlier, the wait was about an hour and a half, and the restaurant is open until 4:oo AM on the weekends. People must really love these balls. I know I do...
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