Balls Balls Balls

Meow!

Sorry I've been off the radar for a month. I've been busy with the new website where I am....the Beauty Editor! Yes not the food editor but the Beauty Editor. Not that I'm complaining, I mean can you imagine how fat I'd be if my second job was to eat and drink?! God forbid! But I think I'd enjoy it less because I'd have to produce reviews all the time, and as you can see from my history of blogs, I'm more of a sporadic blogger. Anyway it's not really a stretch being Beauty editor given my never ending pursuit to stay looking young and my penchant for trying new beauty products! If you ever need any tips, check me out at Couturing. 

Anyway, I've been out this evening at the closing night of the Italian Film Festival watching "To Rome with Love", Woody Allen's latest excuse to live somewhere awesome for a couple months and direct a movie! This reminded me of my love of Rome and pretty much everything Italian! A perfect segue to a newly opened restaurant here in Melbourne, The Meatball and Wine Bar.

Now as you can guess, the MBWB (this is how I'm referring to it at the moment) serves meatballs. Tasty tasty meatballs. Over the winter months I had been walking past the restaurant as it was being renovated, on my way for my morning coffee. I kept thinking about how tasty meatballs were when I saw the sign outside and therefore how disappointed I'd be if the place was no good. Seriously, I love eating meatballs (there is no innuendo intended there at all). Whether they're on a pizza, in a pasta, and even at Ikea, I'll always pick it off the menu. So you can appreciate my excitement when the restaurant was finally opened about a month ago. It's safe to say that after two visits for meatballs and many others for coffee (thank you to the Barista who makes THE most excellent coffee I need in the morning!), the place did not disappoint the Greedy Kat.

The restaurant has exposed brick walls and has the ambience of a very cool NYC bar feel. Now I was told by someone that this restaurant was a copy of some restaurant in NYC and that's why we shouldn't go there. Uh hello? I don't live in NYC and I doubt that there is a restaurant in town that isn't like some other restaurant somewhere around the world. I would think that you would rate a restaurant on whether the food and service was good. It's lucky I don't think that way, otherwise I'd lead a very sad life eating instant noodles at home.

Anyway I digress. I've been to the MBWB twice now and each time I've left extremely content. The menu is basically divided up into a few sections on the page. The left side of the menu has a few appetisers of cured meats, charcuterie board, different types of mozzarella, mini balls and jerky.

Square in the middle of the menu is your choice of meatballs and sauce. You get three balls in each serving and you can choose between beef, chicken, pork, fish and I think vegetarian (ok so I didn't get past land animals - do you blame me?!). Then you can select one of three sauces to accompany your balls. The red sauce is a beautifully cooked tomato/basil sugo which I thought was delish. The white sauce is a beautifully smooth kind of bechamel sauce and the Green Sauce is a pesto sauce.

The dish itself costs $14. Now if you want your balls to sit on something nice and tasty, you can choose between beans, potato smash, polenta, market greens or pasta for another $4.

Beef Balls with the Red Sauce

On my first visit, I had the charcuterie board which had cured meats - two different salamis, proscuitto and capocollo (cured pork shoulder which my bro-in-law keeps raving about!). Definitely a good starter if you are eating with a few people.
The next time I'm going to try the mini balls and jerky!!!

Beef Meatball Sliders

For main, I had the beef balls with the red sauce on top of smashed potato, accompanied by home-baked bread. Now to be honest, when I first saw the size of it, I thought, holy moly I'm going to have to order more. However I did order more (in the form of meatballs sliders - located on the right of the menu) and it was too much. Once again eyes bigger than stomach!! I only one additional slider and that made me too full for dessert.

Whoopie Mac

Having said that, there was no way I was going to leave the MBWB without having the Whoopie Mac. This heavenly dessert is a giant macaron with ice cream in the middle. It was delish and I look forward to having my next one sometime soon!!

Pork Balls with the White Sauce

On my second visit, I went for lunch this time and only ordered the meatballs. I had the pork meatballs with the white sauce and potato smash (I'm a total sucker for any mashed potato dish). The pork balls had more spice flavour in it (I think fennel seed), but I think the white sauce did well to complement the fuller flavour of the meat.
Unfortunately because it was lunch, I couldn't fit in the Whoopie Mac otherwise I'd fall asleep at my desk!

Both meals were accompanied by a carafe of Abruzzi Montepulciano. Stunning wine and quite affordable too!


Both meals were quite reasonable priced and I think with the never ending increase in menu prices around town, it's refreshing to be able to have a meal for less than $35 and feel satisfied!!

If you're nearby in the morning, then I would definitely recommend going to MBWB for coffee. The Barista, makes me remember why I live in Melbourne - because the coffee is made to perfection. The only thing that would round out my morning coffee would be some nice brekkie balls. Now that's something I'm looking forward to whenever their Breakfast menu goes live (rumoured to be in the next week or two).

Now that I've watched a movie set in Rome and talked about Italian cured meats and meatballs, I'm thinking I need to make a trip to MBWB urgently to get my next Italian food hit. Anyone care to join?!

xx