e a t e r y R O W

MEATBALL SHOP

84 Stanton Street

New York, NY 10002

(212) 982-8895

I trudged through the snow and slush to Epstein's Bar on Stanton to meet up with the girl who writes the blog Snackish.com. Let's call her Snackish for the sake of argument. She had already put our names on the waiting list at Meatball Shop next door and was awaiting a phone call telling us that our table was ready. Meatball Shop is the recently opened comfort food restaurant on Stanton that serves a menu made up just about entirely of meatballs. It's a popular place with waits sometimes exceeding two hours. Snackish tried valiantly in the past to endure the wait, but couldn't bring herself to. After all, in the East Village, with restaurants ever two feet, finding somewhere else to eat is hardly a difficult task. This time, with a fellow foodie in tow, she was determined to succeed. We had to know. Is it worth that kind of wait? Clearly, there was hype to be investigated and who better to investigate it than semi-professional eaters like us?

I almost never eat out with other food bloggers. But I met the girl who writes Snackish.com a few weeks ago and we commiserated about being that guy in our groups of friends who always has to take pictures and notes at dinner. "No, you can't eat that yet!" I will sometimes cry out. Smacking hands away is a rarity. Arranging the items on the table to get a better pic is a given.

The seating at Meatball is tight. You can eat at the bar if there are seats available, but most people wind up at the large community table in the center of the room. We were lucky enough be given one of the few individual tables by the wall. The lighting isn't dim, but it's not too bright, either. Everything is wood or stone or iron. Meat grinder parts decorate a wall. The menu is laminated and comes with a pen. You don't order with your waitress so much as hand her the menu you've just scribbled all over. Fun, in a sort of there-should-be-sawdust-on-the-floor kind of way.

We ordered a range of meatball sliders, like a sampler pack, though they do serve heros if you want a larger sandwich. Meatball Shop has four kinds of meatballs (Beef, Pork, Chicken, and Vegetable) and five kinds of sauces (Tomato, Spicy Meat, Mushroom Gravy, Parmesan Cream, and Pesto). They'll also toss a fried egg on top of your ball for a buck. The fours sliders that I ordered were the beef meatball with tomato sauce, the beef meatball with parmesan cream, the pork meatball with mushroom gravy and the vegetable meatball with... spicy meat sauce (take that, vegans! heh heh). The beef/tomato was good and standard, like the meatball sub at Subway. The beef/parmesan was very good. It's a funny sauce to put on a meatball (I think) and I liked it. Cheesy, smooth, not too bitter. The best was probably the pork/mushroom. The pork meatball was the lightest of the bunch, not having tried the chicken and the mushroom gravy was like having it dunked in a revamped version of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. Condensed. The vegetable meatball with meat sauce was the least impressive. First, I couldn't tell that the meat sauce was a meat sauce. It was virtually indistinguishable from the regular tomato sauce. Meanwhile the vegetable meatball was dry and flavorless. I won't get this again.

I ordered their Simple Salad in my attempt to be healthy amidst the ground meat. It was a standard salad with apple sliced tossed in for sweetness. Nothing unique. We decided to try very simple, standard comfort food side dishes, which they served in a bowl family-style: the smooth White Beans and the bitter Braised Greens. Both were good, paired well with the meatballs and well worth four dollars each, but neither was made in any special way and my bet is that their other sides like the risotto, the polenta, the rigatoni, etc aren't made uniquely either. The whole goal here is to give you the food that you might get at the Colorado log cabin that Grandma lives in.

For dessert, Snackish and I decided to try a scoop of their Brown Sugar Ice Cream (very brown sugary. I bet this would be great in coffee) and a Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwich. The problem with the sandwich was that the cookie was very stiff. Not stale, but they should use a soft cookie because you end up squeezing all of the ice cream out of the sides.

Snackish felt much the same way that I did. That while the food was good, it wasn't really memorable. We were left wondering about why anyone in their right mind would choose to spend two hours in line or huddled by the chill of the front door to eat here. The reason, you learn once you're sitting down, is for the atmosphere. It's incredibly relaxing. Weirdly relaxing.

Meatball Shop may be trendy in a quasi-retro way, but it lacks the pretension and arrogance of other gastropubs. There's class here without it at all being classy. The food is everything a meatball restaurant should sell (meatballs in bread) and it's pretty cheap to boot. Meatball Shop is warm and comfortable. It's the restaurant version of a blanket and a cup of cocoa by the fireplace. You can't help but smile, even if you don't entirely know what you're smiling at.

THE IMMIGRANT
341 East 9th Street
New York, NY 10003
(212) 677-2545

Unlike many of the cities that occupy this globe upon which we all reside, New York has no lack of wine bars. From Cavatappo way uptown to 'inoteca way downtown to both Cavatappo and 'inoteca in Kips Bay, if you want a wine list you can find one. What separates The Immigrant from these two previous examples is intimacy. Not intimacy in any sort of romanticized sexual way, but intimacy in a cozy nook-and-cranny way.

Immigrant is hidden inside of ninth street between First and Second Avenues, behind nondescript signage and a fern. Walking inside, it's pitch black. I say that a lot, I know. But Immigrant may be the darkest liquor hole outside of Milk & Honey.

Dogz and I finished having dinner at Sigiri, a fantastic BYOB Sri Lankan place on 6th Street and headed a few blocks north to meet Bro. When we arrived at Immigrant around 9-ish, the three of us were among the only people there. By 9:30, it was crowded. So don't get there fashionably late unless you really like standing up.

One thing about Immigrant that separates it from many of the other wine bars you can choose to drink at is that they don't really have a wine list. At least not one that was shown to me. Instead, Immigrant has a list of wine. Reds and whites (and some beer), and you pick the type of wine you want. So they might have one or two pinot grigios or one or two malbecs and you either like what they offer or you don't. This means that you're putting a lot of trust in management for providing non-plonk, but hey, let's not kid ourselves. Most of the time, most of us don't couldn't judge a wine to save our lives. If it's not notably rancid or corked, it's acceptable. We don't know good vineyards or good years. Most of us like a particular type of wine without giving two shiznizzles about much else. Case in point, Two-Buck Chuck (side note, 2BC Chardonnay is heinous). In essence, Immigrant takes the angst and anxiety out of the process. If the wine I usually like sucks, I can blame Immigrant rather than my own gross ignorance.

The Immigrant also has a small plates menu to snack on while imbibing. Most of its food is Mediterranean-derived. Bro ordered a plate of baklava. It was good. Not amazing but a great snack to get you through another glass of wine without getting too foggy in the ol' brain. As I parenthatized, there is a beer list, albeit a small one. Don't show up expecting to get a full-on dinner or expecting to pound back an ice-bucket of Coronas with your compadres.

Immigrant isn't for large groups or parties and I'm willing to bet that coming here to meet other singles eager to picked up is probably gonna land you in the slums of dissappointmentville. However, come with a friend or two to shoot the breeze and get tipsy or come with a date. Come expecting that you'll be spending the entire time engaged with the people you came with. There's no dance floor to escape to, no meat-market vibe, no reason to be here if it isn't to relax and drink.

CAFE D'ALSACE
1695 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10128
(212) 722-5133

Cafe D'Alsace is one of the Restaurants that pepper Manhattan as part of the Tour De France restaurant group. It includes the likes of L'Express, Nice Matin, and French Roast, to name a few. Each of them, in theory, focuses on the cuisine from a certain part of France. Cafe D'Alsace focuses on the Alsatian region near the German border, so the food here is heavily German influenced. They naturally have a pretty damn good beer list. I was a jerk and ordered an Ommegang Hennepin.

Cafe D'Alsace rests comfortably on the Upper East Side. Much like the Upper West Side, this isn't a dining out destination. The restaurants are good, to be sure, but they are rarely innovative. People come home from a long day at work (this being the UES, they're probably hedge fund people) and want to eat something that they're familiar with. And let's not forget that 88th street isn't the most youthfully exuberant area in town. Slightly farther north and you've got 20-somethings just out of college rooming four to a two-bedroom and going to fratty bars drinking beer out of plastic cups, but 88th street is a solidly empty-nester friendly zone.

And so Cafe D'Alsace, while thoroughly pleasant and comfortable, isn't about to make me lie in bed at night craving their cuisine. I arrived around 8pm to meet my friend Lina. There was a pretty good sized crowd and we wound up at a table smack in the middle of the restaurant. Good for camera angles, not good for being able to gossip without the table right next to you listening in. After ordering a round of drinks, Lina skipped an appetizer but I started with their Venison Sausage appetizer, which I liked quite a bit. Venison, for those who've never had it, is very very good. It's gamey, but not gritty and tough like buffalo. It's a red meat, so it's similar to beef in texture, but with a twist, the way wild boar is pork with a twist (for the better, in my opinion). Served on a bed of sauerkraut salad with lingonberries and a sweet red wine glaze, this was a great appetizer, but was not indicative of the rest of the meal.

Lina orders the good ol' French go-to dish, Steak Frites, Thin steak with french fries. It was, as I implied earlier, fine, but not spectacular. I order it A LOT and have certainly had better steak frites (though she asked for it well-done so maybe this isn't the restaurant's fault. Seriously, for the rest of you out there, don't let those cows die in vain by ordering your steak well-done). I ordered the Classic Cassoulet, a bean-based stew with fois gras, lamb, duck and garlic sausage, and duck confit. It was heavy. Super heavy. And when you get it you think it's small. But it's dry. The beans were okay, but too gloppy and the sausage required being eaten while drinking your beer. Lina loved the duck confit though and has since out trip here reminded me twice of how good it was. I took half of it home and finished it the next day.



Come dessert, I was ready to explode like a Monty Python character but Lina ordered a Chocolate Tart. It looked nicer on the plate than it tasted on my tongue. Like the other dishes, it was too dry and too heavy. I stole a bite or two with my coffee.

Compared with the other restaurants in the Tour De France playbook that I've been to, Cafe D'alsace is the weakest. It doens't have the outdoor space of Maison or the eye candy of L'Express or the relaxed cheapness of French Roast. It doesn't have escargot on the menu. It does have a good beer list though, something that I would certainly be willing to return for. I'll just skip the chocolate tart.

BEST/WORST 2010

The absolute best, and the flat-out worst, places we've eaten at this Anno Domini, 2010.

In the life of this particular blog, 2010 was the year of the outer borough. The Manhattan establishments I went to in the last twelve months were either, by and large, forgettable or they stunk. Meanwhile, the restaurants that required a little bit of travel were the ones that stood out. They were the ones that made me wonder how anyone who refused to cross a river to eat a meal could dare call themselves a "foodie" (they can't). This list proves that dining doesn't need to be expensive to be great. You just can't be lazy about it.

*********
THE BEST

This Red Hook gem stands out, handily winning my top honor for quite simply doing absolutely nothing wrong. Great service, great ambiance, tiny menu, and of course, amazing food and drinks. If you were ever thinking "I want to open a restaurant, but I really want Jon to like it" then go here. Every neighborhood in New York should have a Fort Defiance in it.

Park Slope's Beer Table's Lilliputian size (creating its notable lack of table space) is its sole downside. Once you're inside sitting down, and have accustomed yourself to having your neighbor's elbow firmly embedded in your love handles, prepare to be wowed by not only the beers they have available for your enjoyment, but by the knowledge of the staff pouring it into your glass. They're the sommeliers of stout. The beer snob in you (the food snob too, by the way) and in your circle of friends will be in heaven.

Yes, this year I did me some drinkin' and Park Slope's Char No. 4, with it positively huge whiskey list, was helping me find the best way to do so. With a transcontinental selection and prices ranging from $3 to $100 per ounce, virtually every palate can be satisfied. Add to it all a delicious food menu and you have a place that was giving Fort Defiance a run for its money.

If you read this blog at all regularly, then you know that as much as I love Italian food, I usually find that the majority of Italian restaurants are half-assed attempts at using a Prego jar to separate you from your wallet. Williamsburg's Baci & Abbracci is not. It was consistently good across every front and, like Char No. 4, was on my ultra-short list for best restaurant. Nothing I ate here disappointed in the slightest, the atmosphere wasn't cliche, the staff was nice, the subway was nearby. It was everything you could want in an Italian restaurant.

While Baci & Abbraci was the best overall Italian restaurant, Uvarara, the Middle Village Italian wine bar had, far and away, the best gnocchi. To my scale's dismay, I've eaten a lot of gnocchi this year and their golf ball-sized, butter-soaked and cheese-topped versions were the best of the bunch by leaps and bounds. If you ever wake up craving gnocchi, you should be waking up craving these.

With the success of Shake Shack and company, burger joints have been popping up like mushrooms. The trick these days is less about finding a good hamburger than in finding a unique one. Anyone can serve a beef burger or a turkey burger, but Astoria's Bare Burger has elk. Tender, delicious elk on a whole grain bun, served in a room designed with almost entirely recycled materials and you have a fantastic meal that's virtually guilt free (unless you're a vegetarian, which I am not).

The only Manhattan location on the best list this year is the East Village's Artichoke Pizza. Ironically enough, Artichoke hails from Staten Island. Serving only a half dozen kinds of pizza, none of which are "standard" and all of which are fantastic, Artichoke is simply the best pizza in NYC. It's worth the half hour line that comes required with the experience and almost makes you pity the tourists who'll wait in line for hours to get a pie (that simply doesn't compare) from Grimaldi's.

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THE WORST
(Congratulations...)

Salsa Y Salsa makes the list for so many reasons, not the least of which was being served someone's hair. Fish tacos with almost no fish in them, the constant and steady breeze of ice-cold wind, uncooked doughy tortillas, the waiter who vanished only to re-appear drinking at the bar, the otherwise awful food. And, of course, there was the 18-inch long strand of hair.

It was bad enough waiting two hours to get in, then being strung along for a table once through the door (or maybe just plain forgotten about?), then having to stand up the entire time just so to be served unimpressive cocktails. But pairing that with the sad fact that I had been warned about this in advance... it just makes me angry at myself.

Kingswood is popular. The wait on weekends can be long. And it was for this reason that I was fooled into eating there. I equated popularity with tastesgoodity, a common error. Miniskirts and silicone may be fun to look at and be great on a balance sheet, but they can't fix a broken kitchen. Overcooked greasy food with poorly paired sides is fine if you're a Waffle House off Interstate 95, but when you charge as much as Kingswood does, there's no excuse.

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