The Meatball Shop

Meatballs and Ice Cream sandwiches - we loved them as kids and they remain two of our favorite comfort foods.  So we were really excited to try out The Meatball Shop, a casual restaurant devoted to variations of meatball dishes and different combinations of ice cream sandwiches.

It was a hot, sunny afternoon so we started off with a glass of crisp Vermentino ($6) and a pint of Brooklyn Lager ($5).  Then we grabbed the magic marker to make our menu choices.

Though the menu looks complicated, there are really only a few decisions you need to make:  type of dish, meatball, sauce, and if you want a side.  There are 5 types of meatballs:  spicy pork, beef, chicken, vegetable, and the weekly special (lamb) - and 4 types of sauces:  tomato, spicy meat, mushroom, and Parmesan cheese.   

We chose a bowl of Spicy Pork Meatballs with Tomato Sauce ($7).  Even though it was barely spicy (we would have preferred more red pepper flakes), this was our favorite meatball.  The pork was so tender and moist.  The tomato sauce was homey and we sopped it all up with our leftover sandwich bread from our other dish. 

We also chose the meatball hero with Beef meatballs, spicy meat sauce, and provolone on whole wheat bread and arugula salad ($9).

This was a hearty and substantial sandwich.  We liked the plump meatballs as they had a good texture (i.e. not mushy), but did not find the spicy meat sauce spicy at all.  The Il Forno baguette held up well to the sauce as it didn't get soggy.

We capped off our meal with an Ice cream sandwich ($4).  Here we only had to choose a type of house-made ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, espresso, mint, and caramel) and freshly-baked cookie (chocolate chip, peanut butter, ginger snap, brownie, and walnut meringue).  We opted for the espresso ice cream and peanut butter cookies.  It was a cold treat to end a hot afternoon lunch.

The Meatball Shop is located at 84 Stanton St (btwn Allen and Orchard Sts) in NYC.