Great Balls!

Restaurant Name: The MeatBall Shop
Location: 84 Stanton St.
Website: http://www.themeatballshop.com/
Price Range: 20-30$ per person depending on how many sides and desserts you order
JCL Rating: 6.5/10
JCL's Choice: Spicy pork w/ spicy meat sauce; Mashed potatoes; specials (Depends on what the special is)

"Wow so crowded, this must be good!" Was the thought that came into my mind when I first entered this restaurant/bar. This place is very crowded. Especially around dinner time. The perfect ambience for people that likes loud and relax environments due to the dimmed candle lighting. I remember vividly, the first time I came here (recommended and accompanied by the same friend) we had to wait one hour and thirty minutes. Yep, an hour and thirty minutes, waiting in the cold winter night of January 2011. But at the end of the night, it was well worth it. I had spicy meatball with spicy meat sauce. It was great. Very tender and well flavored. Combined with the sauce, it was the perfect match. I went back there a couple more times after, my favorite has got to be the steak and bacon with cheddar cheese meatball with spicy meat sauce. All of those visits were before I decided to write a food blog.

This restaurant/bar's ordering style is very unique. Their menus are plastic framed and each table has a cup with markers in it. You have to check the boxes on what kind of meatballs you want, with which sauce, and under or on the side for side dishes. I thought that was very cool.

The first few times that I visited this restaurant, the service was excellent. The waitresses were extremely attentive. Maybe it is due to the fact that it was overly crowded so they want people to leave as soon as possible. But nonetheless, they were always there when you needed to place your orders or to refill your water or to get the check. But when I visited again today, the service was very poor. Starting with the busboy... very unprofessional. I understand that there is no uniform restrictions but the first half of his boxers were showing due to his sacking pants! My friend's glasses and mine were empty for a while... and yet no refills were being made. And when he did get a chance to refill our glasses, he spilled all over the table and splashed some on my friend. Props to the waitress though, she was very polite... but less attentive as I experienced before. Now after my discriminating comments about the service... we can move on to the food and beverages.

They have special meatballs, side dishes, beverages either weekly or daily. I can't come to a conclusion of how often they do so. Today's special meatball was Chicken Cordon which consists of chicken, ham, and Swiss cheese. I had it with Parmesan cream sauce. The creaminess of the Parmesan cream sauce enhances the individual flavors of the chicken and ham. Although I didn't taste the Swiss as much as I would like. Mix the spaghetti in the cream sauce, YUMMY! Every plate of naked balls comes with a piece of focaccia bread. I assume it was freshly baked in the morning. I got my order at around 2 PM, it was not completely hard but the skin was a little rough to chew on.

Every time I give this place a visit, I have to order the mashed potatoes. It is so rich in butter. They also put bite size pieces of potatoes and a shreds of potato skin in their mashed potatoes. Topped with minced chives. I loved the idea of having chunks of potato but with potato skins as well, that is just fascinating. The skin gives the mashed potato a total new texture and color contrast.

Their dessert menu consist of ice cream scoops and ice cream sandwiches. You can pick your choice of ice cream with which ever type of cookie you want to make the sandwich with. Just like the meatballs, they also have specials. Today's special was maltball ice cream with chocolate wafer cookie. The ice cream was very milky. You can taste the whooper as the ice cream's main flavor. But as for the chocolate walfer cookie, it was not up to par. The chocolate was a little too overwhelming. It was also very hard. As the "bread" of the ice cream sandwich, you would expect the cookies to be softer... Eating this ice cream sandwich was out of the question. The cookie was too hard to crack with the spoon... I apologize for not taking a picture for the ice cream sandwich. Forgot.

The beverage menu consist of alcoholic beverages from the bar as well as floats and lemonades. Guess what? They have special lemonades just like the desserts and meatballs... I had a tarragon lemonade before, but was not impressed. But don't be afraid to try it out other lemonade specials!

Overall it was only decent. The food quality is great. But the service was not on point. When you been treated above par once, you would expect the place to hold its consistency, no? In this case, I was very disappointed with the service we received. It might have been due to a hot summer day or a less busy afternoon, but that is still not an excuse.