On Thursday night, I went to the Meatball Madness event for New York City Wine and Food Festival. It was a really fun event at a nice event space in Soho and my friend and I ate so many meatballs I don’t think I can go to The Meatball Shop for a while. I didn’t take that many photos because I was too busy eating, but here are the shots I managed to capture:
The Artichoke guys had a basil plant at their stand and were picking fresh basil leaves to add to your meatball sandwich (very nice touch):
Pulino’s meatball prep station:
More meatball prep:
Porsena’s meatball station:
The meatball trophy:
Kate Krader and Lee Ann Wong chatting over meatballs at the judges table:
I had my favorites – Artichoke’s plain and simple meatball, Maialino’s rabbit meatball, and any meatball that also had a side of risotto was pretty a-ok in my book. (surprisingly, The Meatball Shop’s steak meatball stuffed with cheese on a buttermilk biscuit was not on my favorites list because it was WAY too heavy for me). I also had my least favorites – anything that involved a vegetarian meatball or fake meat did not do it for me (anything made with tempeh is pretty disgusting to me).
My friend and I consumed almost all of the meatballs (I think we missed a couple because they ran out by the time we visited their stations). Too much red meat and tomato sauce for one night – it was super fun but I definitely ate way too much!
I always recommend Fish to friends because I really do think they have the best deal on lobsters and oysters in the city. You get a lobster, two sides, and 5 steamers for $19 and then you can add a second lobster for $14. For oysters, it’s half a dozen oysters + a PBR or house wine for $8. Ken and I always go all out when we eat at Fish – I order both lobsters with green beans and spinach and six oysters and Ken orders a pound of king crab legs:
The service is pretty terrible (last time we were there with Angie and Nat, the waitress spilled wine on Angie after she brought us wine instead of beer…and then didn’t bother apologizing). The food is definitely worth it and the lines are super long in the summer time but the food is so good that it’s worth the wait!
On Saturday, after my dinner with Hana at Peels, Ken and I met up to head to my second dinner at The Meatball Shop. The wait for a table was about two hours (which was fine with me since I was still kind of full from Peels) but Ken hadn’t eaten so we decided to grab a quick bite to eat at Rosario Pizza. Rosario Pizza is down the block from The Meatball Shop and was pretty empty (I think it gets crowded later in the evening, probably around 3AM) but we ordered some pizza to tide us over. A slice of pepperoni:
Surprisingly not that bad! Lots of cheese and pepperoni but the crust tasted a little too generic. The crust actually tasted like it was homemade, but it definitely satisfied our appetites while we waited for the awesomest meatballs.
Last week, 12 of us from work went to Olive Garden for lunch. It started off as someone wanting breadsticks and we kidded around about it, saying it would be really funny if we went to Olive Garden for lunch, but our jokes turned into reality when I got a meeting invite from one of the developers. I wasn’t a huge fan of Olive Garden as a kid; one of my best friend’s told me a story about her sister throwing up from eating their salad and it ruined my experience for a good ten years. The last time I visited one was probably in 2005, when a friend insisted we go to the one in Times Square (I didn’t eat, I just sat and sulked while he gorged himself on linguine and breadsticks.)
While perusing the menus (pronto vs. the regular menu) I noticed that everything had calorie counts next to the description. Sad to see that some entrees were over 1000 calories (actually, the majority of options were over 1000 calories). Even the chicken Caesar salad was about 900 calories. Each breadstick is 100 calories, which is funny because it really deterred people from having their usual amounts of bread.
So, lunch at Olive Garden. Since we had so many people, they sat us in a private room in the back of the restaurant, which is surprisingly large. We had four salads spanning the long table – here’s ours:
Iceberg lettuce, red onions, lots of croutons, tomatoes, banana peppers and their famous Italian dressing. I had four bowls of salad (I mean, it’s unlimited) and really paid for it later because I had to drink 4 liters of water to get rid of the thirsty feeling in my mouth. Some people ordered entrees to go along with the breadsticks and salad but I opted for the soup – unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks for $8.95. First soup: minestrone:
It actually ended up being my only soup; the server didn’t return to ask if I wanted a refill until he cleared everyone else’s plate. The soup was watery but had chunks of tomatoes and beans. What happened the Italian wedding soup that used to be popular at Olive Garden? The other soup options were all cream-based so minestrone was the only option I wanted to try, but I probably should have just stuck with the salad and breadsticks.
Kristen, the developer that used to be a hostess at Olive Garden, said that the breadsticks hit the spot and that’s all that mattered. Next, we are talking about visiting Red Lobster because some members of the team haven’t been and one of our interns said it’s his favorite restaurant!
The day after Hurricane Irene, Ken and I walked around our neighborhood to see what restaurants were open. We found a couple and decided we wanted more comfort food so we walked into Terakawa Ramen for a quick bite to eat.
Ken ordered the terakawa ramen – pork bone based noodle soup & bamboo shoot, red ginger roast pork, boiled egg, scallion, kikurage:
I ordered the miso ramen – ramen soy bean based noodle soup & bamboo shoot, roast pork bean sprout, boiled egg, scallion, kikurage:
We also ordered the Tokyo fried chicken platter:
And an extra serving of noodles:
I preferred the ramen that came with my miso ramen over Ken’s ramen (his noodles weren’t curly!) but Ken’s broth was a lot better. Their pork serving was a little stingy (only ONE slice!) and it was too fatty to enjoy. The Tokyo fried chicken platter was really delicious but there was a lot more rice and salad than chicken (only six pieces!) We ordered the extra order of noodles because we were still hungry after finishing our noodles and the fried chicken and the extra serving was just the right amount of food that we needed.
The lunch special seems really good (coworkers have gone there for lunch but I never had the chance to make it over) and they have twitter specials all the time so I definitely plan on heading back! Be warned: it’s cash only!
