HOW MANY foods are simpler or more ubiquitous than the meatball? Grind some meat, season it, roll it into a ball, then bake, steam, grill, broil, boil, or fry it up. That basic recipe holds a place in an astonishing number of cuisines from around the world. For many folks, the meatball is also the definition of comfort food, something you mistily recall from Mom’s love-filled kitchen, against which all successors have the unenviable task of measuring up.
Consider the 1985 mob flick Prizzi’s Honor, in which hitman Charley Partanna (played by Jack Nicholson) offers former flame Maerose Prizzi (Anjelica Huston) this hoary prescription for happiness: “Settle down, get married, have a few kids, get a life, practice your meatballs.” That line speaks not only to how meatballs are revered as a totem of old-fashioned domestic culinary bliss, but to the fact that making extraordinary ones is harder than it looks: it takes practice.
Fortunately for Bostonians, hundreds of local chefs in dozens of different cuisines are constantly practicing their meatballs, working angles from the traditional to the highly innovative. I’d never dare suggest that any of the following 10 unique versions might supplant your mom’s, but all are worth trying on their own delicious merits.
Diva Indian Bistro
Once you get past the eye-popping, ’60s Mod/sci-fi décor and club-like cocktail list on the bar side of Diva Indian Bistro (246 Elm Street, Somerville, 617.629.4963), you notice some regional diversity on the menu, including specialties of South India, Mumbai, Goa, and Gujarat in addition to the expected Moghul and Punjabi standbys. It’s also a haven for vegetarian gourmands, including those who like the concept of the meatball but not that pesky first syllable.
Diva’s entry into the local not-meatball sweepstakes is a very fine version of malai kofta ($12.95), crunchy fried croquettes of potatoes, malai (clotted cream), and crumbled paneer (indian-style farmer cheese), served in a fragrant gravy with onions, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, chopped nuts, and dried fruit. My Indian friends will protest that this, like most restaurant dishes, doesn’t hold a candle to their moms’ versions. If you’re like me, with a mom who has neither indian cooking skills nor the time to spend the entire day cooking for me, this kofta will do just fine.
Giorgiana’s
South End native Anna Barounis recently realized a dream to return to the block of Tremont Street where she grew up, opening (with husband George Tsaousidis) a grocery/convenience store in the very spot where her dad ran a Greek market for decades. Giorgiana’s (532 Tremont Street, Boston, 617.542.0101) features a deli serving authentic hot and cold American, Italian, and especially Greek dishes, all of them homemade-tasting.
Erase all your bad Greek-American diner food memories here, starting with keftedes, highly seasoned Greek meatballs of beef with a bit of feta, big and oblong like turkey eggs, served in a chunky marinara. For a huge, value-priced meal, get them as a dinner plate ($10.95), on which come five keftedes with a big piece of french bread and two generous sides, with options including fasolakia ladera (green beans stewed with tomatoes and onions) and Greek-style rice with tomatoes and spinach.
Sorellina
Clone the golden-goose formula of Mistral — whistle-slick modern atmosphere and sterling service wrapped around a solid, upscale, not-too-creative menu (Italian this time) — and you get the equally sizzling Sorellina (One Huntington Avenue, Boston, 617.412.4600). That some of the prices are ridiculous doesn’t seem to be dampening anyone’s good time. But one dish worth the lucre is the maccheroncelli with American Wagyu beef meatballs ($14/half-portion; $27/full).
The maccheroncelli, one-foot-long, slightly heavy tubes, are masterful examples of fresh-pasta fabrication and cookery. The accompanying Barolo sauce is a ladleful of concentrated luxury. As for the meatballs, the American version of Kobe beef won’t wow anyone who’s tasted the real thing, but it does have a deeply beefy, fat-heavy flavor, and in these meatballs, a superbly velvety texture. These are not your mama’s meatballs, but unless your mama is a freshly Botoxed, Prada-sporting cougar with a new boy toy in tow, she probably won’t catch you eating them here, anyway.
Pita Kabob
Many cooks are happy to share their meatball recipes; others, not so much. Some typically testy responses I’ve received to ingredient inquiries: “Yeah, like I’d just hand over 30 years’ worth of tinkering”; “Sorry, that’s family only.” Or, in the case of the owner of Pita Kabob (2 Avenue de Lafayette, Boston, 617.542.7482), a downtown Iranian takeout joint, an openly suspicious, rather chilling glare. (He’s otherwise quite friendly.)
Actually, once you’ve sampled this man’s kubideh, a Persian grilled beef meatball, you’ll understand. He brings all his kebab-making wizardry to it, yielding a fresh, juicy meatball full of great charcoal-grill flavor. (i challenge you to achieve similar results with a sphere of meat on your grill at home.) But the seasoning is also a wonder, with some familiar notes — onion, certainly — and some not-so. Is that sumac, the dried berry favored by Middle Eastern cooks for its sourness? Is there saffron in there? Maybe dried mint? Ponder this as you enjoy them on a plate with basmati, shirazi salad, and pita ($6.95), or in pita with lettuce, tomato, onion, and tahini ($5.50). Just don’t ask for the recipe: that’s family only.
Angela’s Café
Bolstering the meatball/family connection, Eastie storefront Angela’s Café (131 Lexington Street, East Boston, 617.567.4972) features chef Angela Atenco Lopez in the kitchen, her son Luis managing the dining room, and her other children and grandchildren waiting and bussing tables. Angela’s sensational Mexican food must be ordered off her daily array of chalkboard specials, which showcase her mastery of authentic dishes with stunningly complex sauces from her native Puebla, bolstered by simpler, clearly flavored dishes such as an amazing hand-mortared guacamole. (Ignore the American and gringo-ish Mexican dishes on the paper menu.)
I’ve called Angela the Hideki Okajima of Boston’s dining scene: a supernally gifted sleeper foreign import who nobody saw coming. I suspect that what makes her albóndigas ($10.95) — Mexican-style cheese-and-egg-stuffed beef meatballs served with black beans and rice — so wonderful may be the sauce, another of her kaleidoscopically flavored poblana showstoppers, this one strongly smoke-tinged from chipotles. As with all her long-tended, slow-simmered, yard-long recipes, you’ll taste something different in every bite. If you call yourself a foodie and haven’t been here, stop. Better yet, go.
Chilli Duck
Asian cooks serve up meatballs in myriad preparations, floating them like buoys in brothy noodle soups (as in Vietnamese pho bo vien) and starring them in casseroles with a lot of gravy and gently waving choy (as in Shanghainese “lion’s heads”). One Thai rendition borrows the Japanese term sukiyaki, but not its recipe (thin-sliced meat and vegetables simmered in soy and mirin). Thai sukiyaki is instead a steamboat preparation, similar to Japanese shabu-shabu or Chinese hot pot: diners cook various tidbits in a pot of boiling broth at the table, then dip them in a savory sauce before eating.
Thai sukiyaki is what you’ll get at Chilli Duck (829 Boylston Street, Boston, 617.236.5208) when you order kao lao look shin nua sod hot pot ($13.95): little beef meatballs and slices of steak in a broth with mung bean sprouts, cilantro, and garlic. The sauce is deep-flavored and slightly sweet, the meatballs a bit springy, probably from some tripe or other offal. (no need to blanch if you’ve ever eaten a Fenway Frank.) This is a fun, fresh way to enjoy Thai food, much more interesting than that dumbed-down Western menu of pad Thai and chicken satay. Look for it instead on the “authentic thai” menu with the rest of the good stuff.
Grotto
This sexy, dimly lit underground lair of decadently creative Northern Italian cuisine on Beacon Hill is not what I’d call a family place. Grotto (37 Bowdoin Street, Boston, 617.227.3434) is more for romancing, sating louche appetites, celebrating excess. The chef’s penchant for richness occasionally goes over the top, notably in dishes like the justly famed potato gnocchi with short ribs, mushrooms, and gorgonzola ($21.50), and the recently added Le Marches-–style lasagna ($21), filled with chicken livers, prosciutto, and veal.
You’d have to be a hearty eater just to finish the far lighter spaghetti and meatballs ($18.50) with Grotto’s “insanely fabulous tomato sauce,” which has terrific traditional meatballs and what I’d call “merely very good tomato sauce” (note to menu copywriters: let the food do the bragging). More sensibly portioned is the new duck meatball appetizer ($12), a pair the size of ping-pong balls with an attractively dark exterior and unexpectedly lean duck flavor, luxuriating in an intense, beautifully hued Port-wine sauce. There are also two nicely crisped, foie-gras-filled ravioli in their own creamy sauce, dreamy and deadly. Where can I get a Fernet Branca around here?
Saray Restaurant
Who said all meatballs must be round? Fortunately, enforcement on this principle is lax, or we couldn’t include the incredibly tasty but inarguably puck-shaped meatballs served at the lovely new Turkish eatery, Saray Restaurant (1098 Comm Ave, Allston, 617.383.6651). Osmanli kepez kofte ($13.95) are four disks of ground baby lamb grilled by a master, someone who can keep them from drying out while putting a beautiful char on the outside and allowing the smoky flavor to permeate throughout. (Maybe the inclusion of mozzarella in the kofte helps.)
This hefty portion is served with intensely buttery basmati rice, yogurt sauce, an array of grilled vegetables (tomatoes, red onions, a fierce long pepper), some lightly brined pickled veggies (white cabbage, carrots, cukes), and a slaw of shredded purple cabbage. Sip a sour cherry juice ($2) between bites, soak in the lilting conversations of the many ex-pats who have already discovered this place, and be glad you don’t have to call that wondrous morsel on your plate a “meatpuck.”
Myers+Chang
The vibe at this newish South End hotspot is energetic, casual, and, as the weekend evenings wane, loud. Given the somewhat self-conscious hipness of the enterprise, it might surprise you to find so much of the eclectic Asian menu at Myers+Chang (1145 Washington Street, Boston, 617.542.5200) so good. The Vietnamese skirt-steak salad known as tiger’s tears ($10) is a chili-blazing wonder, the simple slaw of edamame and celery ($4) a cooling delight, the dan-dan noodle salad ($7) fresh-tasting and zippy.
There’s a nice balance of authenticity and creativity in the menu’s mix of Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese dishes, the latter evidenced by mu la lat skewers ($10), meatballs — or in the menu’s parlance, “sausages,” though casing-free ones — made from ground pork and lemongrass and expertly grilled. These are served with shiso leaves for wrapping and a sweet/tangy/fiery sauce for dipping. This is vibrantly flavored, vividly textured finger food — a lot of fun to eat, especially as part of a procession of small bites shared with friends over beers or sake. Warning: it may take days to shake the earworm-rich soundtrack on that bumping house audio system from your head.
Anchovies
“Please, MC. You’ve gone on about meatballs made with duck, lamb, luxury beef, pork, even potatoes, most of them served with some kind of weird sauce. What about my old-school, Italian-American, served-with-a-pint-of-Sunday-gravy-and-pound-of-ziti kind of meatballs?” Okay, New Jersey, I hear you, and you’re right: that’s what most of us mean by meatballs.
The version that punches my nostalgia buttons is served at this dark, ultra-casual old South End dive, a haven of budget-priced plates of pasta, no-frills service, and big drinks. At Anchovies (433 Columbus Avenue, Boston, 617.266.5088), a side of meatballs ($4) consists of two tennis-ball sized beauties made with pork sausage, beef, pecorino cheese, and finely minced carrots. I get mine alongside a plate of spaghetti with garlic and olive oil ($8; $11/with meatballs), or the very creditable eggplant parmesan ($10), both of which come with a big, overdressed iceberg-lettuce salad and bread. Gourmet it ain’t, but it’s everything you could want in homely Italian-American fare, and still a bargain in a neighborhood with precious few of them. Buon appetito, amica! @
[Photos by Joel Veak]
