Le Pain Quotidien And Meatballs Open!

Meatballs doesnt come close to The Meatball Shop in the LES for me. I think they are trying to be the Chipotle of meatballs. It’s another assembly line place. Granted I had to wait with a buzzer at Epsteins bar for 90 minutes to get seated at the Meatball Shop in the middle of a Sat afternoon. So there is certainly something to be said for speed.

An establishment that mimics NY’s scene and is very much underwhelming in their execution? Sounds like a DC opening to me!!

I went to Meatballs yesterday and found the sandwich to be delicious. I tried the regular meatballs and the chicken and both were nicely done. The sandwich was HUGE and could easily feed 2 people’s. The collard greens were a nice side choice and had plenty to taste to them. I think the restaurant will do very well in the neighborhood — and am looking forward to the Sunday dinner special. Sounds like a great way to feed some friends with very little fuss.

Also went to Le Pain for a sconce. The only selection they had was a vegan version and while I like vegan baked goods, the scone was dry and tasteless. I hope they do well. A year ago we had no bakery and now we have Le Pain, Paul, Corner Bakery, and Pret a Manger. Yet I still can’t get a decent loaf of bread for under $5.

Looks like the heinous, obnoxious and taseteless pink light is back on at Meatballs, and pouring into that poor person’s condo in the Clara Barton. How the restaurant gets away with that is simply beyond me.

I love the name “Meatballs” for a restaurant and I hope they have a variety of just that. COLLARDS?!! YOWZA! I’m in.

The hideous, glaring, pink sign that shines into the windows of several Clara Barton dwellers reflects (no pun) poorly on Meatballs sense of neighborliness. In addition, they put the sign up in violation of the covenants that control signage for buildings in the Clara Barton complex. A simple temporary solution would be for Meatballs to turn the sign off, but they insist on leaving it on, all the while claiming that they are so sorry. Me thinks they don’t care. We picked up dinner there the other night and were underwhelmed. The meatballs (we tried lamb and classic) were dry, helped some by the marinara. We had them on bread, which was good but dwarfed the meatballs. We were totally underwhelmed by the food and wonder how Michelle Richard can let his name be used on close to mediocre food.

My initial comment has a harsher tone than I intended. I was 5 beers into my Friday night waiting for the Foo Fighters to take the stage. Meatballs is a good addition. Just more on the Merzi fast casual quality level than super gourmet meatball treats like the original NYC concept. The large roll for the grinder is much better than the tiny rolls for the minis in my opinion. And you have the option to make it garlic bread. I didn’t think their classic meatballs were better than Italian Store or Taylor. But the other meatball styles are unique offerings you’d be pressed to find elsewhere. Had the chicken meatballs for lunch today and agree with Jon they are quite good.

It’s fast casual not gourmet hence the fast casual feel to it. Chipotle is a super successful, multi-billion dollar extremely popular place with high quality (being the nexus of quantity, price (getting full for under $7 in PQ DC, wow!!), and quality of food and experience) – I’d I think Meatballs would be ecstatic if they were the next chipotle. The food was delicious (especially for the price and for fast casual)(and as evidenced by the yelp reviews and huge lines each day and great critic reviews I’d say most agree). If you think the NY place is better, well there’s always NY (where people pay $3000 a month in rent for a one bedroom and have hour long commutes each way just in the city alone). They’ll always be complainers, and who knows what they like or expect from a place (I wonder how perfect people expect a place to be – it’s like I want a business, from day one, to perfectly reflect the wishes of every single citizen in the neighborhood, annoy no one, have awesome flawless food, quick perfect service, the most amazing atmosphere, copy no other business in existence anywhere and be better than every other version of the food genre anywhere, be perfect in substantive and form 100% of the time, and cost under $8. Like they say *&^% in one hand, wish in the other…..), but I love it and think Michel Richard should be proud of the place. And the sign rocks, I hope its neon glows brightly for decades. As far as the sign violating the covenants, we’ll see – what violates and doesn’t violate a covenant or a law is yet to be determined and until and unless a court agrees with you, which I doubt it ever will, the sign will remain. Bread is excellent, meatballs tasty, polenta is great, spinach so-so (as are all the sides), moral sauce is best. Can’t wait to try their tandoori sauce. yummmyy

Meatballs is garbage. The sooner they go out of business the better: that stupid pink sign has destroyed the property values of the affected condos by rendering them unsellable because no one is going to buy a pink-encrusted residence…therefor, “Mike”, since you’re a shill, and i presume the owner based on your comments, maybe you need to be a better neighbor, and not an arrogant clown.

Mediocre food at best. The key to a successful urban neighborhood supporting both residential and commercial interests is to develop commercial space in a way that does not impinge on residential qualities. Meatballs has crossed way over the line with the sign. Compare Carmines, Starbuck, Merzi, Rasika, each of which has appropriate signage and is thriving. There is no impact on the residences above those establishments. Meatballs is one big “F___ you” to the residents above, across the street (the neon glares into their windows, too) and by extension to all of the residents of PQ. Their product doesn’t warrant anyone’s repeat business, and as far as I’m concerned, they can’t go out of business soon enough.

@Mike – Since Meatballs literally included a photocopy of the menu of NYC’s “Meatball Shop” in their liquor license application to the ABRA I’d say it’s very fair to compare their product the the original NYC shop.

Editor’s note: No more comments will be accepted from “mike” due to violating the comment policy (refer to “flame baiting” in the Comment Policy)

Though, we will leave his last comment up because it gives us insight into what’s going on inside the minds of the restaurant proprietors & supporters.