Meatball Shop | The Lo-Down : News from the Lower East Side

LES Bites: Birthdays for Taquitoria and Pig & Khao, Meatball Shop Sitcom, Draft Cocktails

Chef Marc Forgione's chili lobster taquito. Photo via Taquitoria's Facebook page.

Chef Marc Forgione’s chili lobster taquito, now appearing at Taquitoria on Ludlow Street. Photo via Facebook.

LES Bites: El Rey in the Times, Celebs Love LES Food, Rosette Mondays

Some food and drink headlines to start off your week.

LES Bites: Family Recipe, Sauce, Gaia, Meatball Shop, Knishery NYC

Family Recipe on Eldridge Street is getting some blog love this week.

Some mid-week restaurant news around the neighborhood:

Examining the vegan and vegetarian options at Eldridge Street newcomer Family Recipe. (Fork In The Road)

Speaking of Family Recipe, it’s one of two LES venues highlighted as affordable, enjoyable alternatives to expensive hotspots. Sauce, Frank Prizinzano’s new Italian joint at Rivington and Allen, is the other. (Eater)

Gaia Italian Cafe on East Houston Street celebrates its first anniversary tonight; stop by to congratulate them and sample some goodies between 5 and 8 p.m. (TLD inbox)

The Meatball Shop’s Michael Chernow has a second career: modeling. (GrubStreet)

Donate to support Holocaust survivors; get homemade knishes. (KnisheryNYC)

Food Wire: Eddie Huang, Stellina, Peels, Meatball Shop, Bowery Beef, Above Allen

Meatball Shop owners Michael Chernow & Daniel Holzman shortly after setting up shop last spring.

Here’s the midweek roundup of food news around the neighborhood.

LES “food personality” Eddie Huang makes Time, whose Josh Ozersky asserts: “Huang gets by on a cocktail of personality, hustle, some luck, some cooking ability, but most of all a really compelling ability to communicate who he is to the world.”
The NYT’s FloFab says Stellina, the new dessert parlor by the folks at Sorella, will open Sunday on Allen Street.
In a one-year anniversary Q&A with Eater, Meatball Shop guys Michael Chernow and Daniel Holzman dish on their expansion to Williamsburg and the West Village, and how they feel about imitators.

Making Meatballs For Jimmy Fallon

The Meatball Shop owners Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow entertained Jimmy Fallon last night while revealing that, in addition their new “shop” in Williamsburg, they will be opening a meatball joint in the West Village as well.

CB3: “No” to Grilled Cheese, “Yes” to Meatballs

Earlier this morning, EV Grieve posted some of the highlights from last night’s SEVEN hour CB3/SLA meeting. Keith Masco’s restaurant/seafood market on Avenue A got the green light… Michael Huynh’s DOB on St. Mark’s Place was rejected… TPoutine was turned away (again)… and Neway (the Eldridge Street karaoke bar) was denied a renewal.

We arrived late and most likely slipped into a coma sometime around 11 o’clock. But in-between those lapses, there were a few items that caught our eye:

Mama Mia, That’s a Spicy Meatball!

It’s a stroke of genius! A whole restaurant devoted to nothing but meatballs. Recently, our food sleuth, Mitch Weinstein of tastytravails.com checked out the Meatball Shop, which just opened on Stanton Street:

I’m sure some of you remember that great ad campaign from the 70’s, featuring the title line of this blog post as it’s dialogue. Over and over, tasting the fictional Magdalini’s Meatballs, and never getting the line right. Poor guy.

So I’m happy to report that you most likely won’t be needing the advertised product I refer to above when you finally do get to try The Meatball Shop‘s meatballs…and sides, for that matter.