{"id":6460,"date":"2012-09-11T23:22:20","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T23:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eataspen.com\/blog\/?p=6460"},"modified":"2012-09-11T23:22:20","modified_gmt":"2012-09-11T23:22:20","slug":"sydney-eats-the-meatball-shack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/sydney-eats-the-meatball-shack\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney eats: The Meatball Shack"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Chicken Meatballs w\/ Zingara<\/p><\/div>\n

Review of The Meatball Shack in Aspen<\/a>: Dinner 8\/7\/12
\n-by Sydney M.<\/p>\n

When dinner is at a place called The Meatball Shack<\/a>, it\u2019s only appropriate to invite three of your best guy friends and your brother to join you.\u00a0 After all, don\u2019t males and meatballs go together like women and Cosmos?\u00a0 Located on South Mill Street, The Meatball Shack\u2019s patio offers front row seats for the bustling action of the mall \u2026 if you can get a table.\u00a0 Our party settled for an indoor table in lieu of waiting an hour to be seated outside – just fine with us as the Olympics were being aired on the two flat screens at the bar.<\/p>\n

The atmosphere inside the restaurant is very sports bar-ish \u2013 lots of noise and action around a bar that dominates the center of the room.\u00a0 I can definitely see the place getting a little rowdy during football season.<\/p>\n

We decided to start our meal with buffalo chicken balls and truffle fries.\u00a0 These six \u201cfor the table\u201d meatballs are half-sized, dripping with spicy buffalo sauce, and served with a side of blue cheese to calm the heat.\u00a0 The truffle fries, while not a standout (I\u2019m pretty much an expert in this category, trust), were still tasty and not too greasy.<\/p>\n

On the menu, the main course meatballs are comically labeled \u201cOur Balls\u201d.\u00a0 Patrons may mix and match four different types of balls – classic meat, chicken, shrimp, and veal \u2013 with four different sauces – housemade tomato, buffalo and blue, Zingara, and Marsala (\u201cwith lotsa shrooms\u201d).\u00a0 I went with the chicken meatball\/Zingara combo, which I found delicious.\u00a0 The Zingara, a tad picante olive and caper tomato sauce, nicely complemented the juicy and flavorful chicken. \u00a0At $13, though, I definitely could have used more than three small balls.<\/p>\n

My dinner companions enjoyed their entrees as well. \u00a0While we all focused on meatballs, the menu also offers a couple of pasta dishes and salads.\u00a0 The quinoa bowl looked yummy, as did the brussel sprouts with pomegranate and the jalapeno pancetta mac and cheese.<\/p>\n

We were on a bit of a time crunch, so had to forgo dessert.\u00a0 Given that the Meatball Shack has one of the most creative dessert menus that I have ever seen, passing on dessert was a tremendous sacrifice.\u00a0 Patrons who order the housemade cookie get to pick their own dough (original, fudge, or oatmeal) and then choose two fillings from an extensive list.\u00a0 Had I had enough time, I would have opted for the oatmeal dough with marshmallow and heath bar fillings.\u00a0 Even more decadent is the Highlands Bowl, a cookie dough of your choice plus three fillings and<\/em> two scoops of ice cream!\u00a0 A dish to share\u2026 or not.<\/p>\n

All in all, good company, good food, and friendly service.\u00a0 Maybe meatballs aren\u2019t just a guy thing after all.<\/p>\n

-Sydney M.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sydney<\/p><\/div>\n

Sydney, an 9-year resident of Aspen, CO, is currently attending Brown University where she is majoring in Brunch. \u00a0Her status as a \u201clactard\u201d frequently interferes with, but does not overcome, her unmatched love for froyo and grilled cheese. \u00a0Sydney enjoys traveling, photography, eating, eating while traveling, and photographing what she eats. \u00a0She is always available for a lunch date.<\/p>\n

View The Meatball Shack<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more reviews by Sydney\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

View all eatAspen eater reviews<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We decided to start our meal with buffalo chicken balls and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[439,440,533,564],"class_list":["post-6460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aspen-restaurants","tag-project-eataspen","tag-project-eatreviews","tag-sydney","tag-the-meatball-shack","author-dmwkes","aspen-restaurants"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1aUGV-1Gc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eataspen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}