The Meatball Shop

On new year’s eve, my friends and I started our big night of festivities in Manhattan and then hopped on the L train to go over to Brooklyn shortly before midnight. Then we decided we wanted one last snack in 2011 before the new year – and ended up at what I consider one of the finest choices in bar-hopping food: The Meatball Shop.



Which would probably sound weird coming from a vegetarian anywhere but NYC, because here you know the odds are they have a veggie version of even the most classic meat dish. Funny thing is, I never ate meatballs before I became a vegetarian. Now I always keep two bags of Trader Joe’s veggie meatballs in my freezer, but I digress…

Because this raises, once again, the question of “Is a meatball slider a burger or not?” which I asked just before the holidays in my review of Mighty Balls at the Union Square Holiday Market.

And I’m still saying “yes”, meatball sliders count as a burger. Mostly because they are just so delicious that I want extra reasons to justify eating them whenever I encounter them.



And The Meatball Shop’s sliders are delicious. I’ve eaten them a few times previously, but I was without a camera at the time and didn’t want to do a full review without decent photos to really do these yummy morsels justice.

I’m also a big fan of the menu system at the Meatball Shop – you mark your order on a laminated menu with a dry-erase pen, checking off the type of meatballs, sauce, etc. that you want. This greatly appeals to the OCD list-maker in me as well as the “please oh please make sure you don’t get my order wrong and give me something that I won’t realize is actual meat until I bite into it by mistake!” fear that I still get when eating in restaurants.



I ordered two sliders because I had actually eaten a first dinner earlier in the evening, so I was just hungry enough to sample two for variety for this review, but not hungry enough for three which would probably be a better number for a full meal.



Mmmm… what a great taste to end the year with! I had one slider with traditional tomato sauce and another with pesto. Because I frakking love pesto. The tomato sauce is delicious too, don’t get me wrong, but really nothing holds a candle to pesto in my book!

And the veggie meatballs themselves were amazing as well. These ones really hold their “ball” shape and don’t flatten out like burgers (but they still count, right?), they’re perfectly crispy on the outside and dense and chewy on the inside. A nicely-spiced and herbed mix of beans and veggies, which particular beans and veggies I honestly could not tell you though – although I was told the balls are not vegan, because they contain eggs and cheese. There’s actually a recipe for them online here, if anyone is interested: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/the-meatball-shop-goes-vegetarian/ Also, highly important when dealing with meatballs/burgers of slider size: the buns were light and puffy and perfectly-sized for their contents!


And look how warm and cozy this place is!

It was kind of quiet when we stopped here around 11pm on new year’s eve, but most times I’ve come it’s been packed full of drunk people, as I’m sure it became as the night wore on. I’ve seen people waiting in a line outside the Lower East Side location at 3 in the morning before (tip: if you’re only a group of 2, you should be able to bypass that line easily though!). We enjoyed our food and went on to ring in the new year with happily full bellies, fueled for the rest of the night’s festivities…

Happy 2012!

Cost: $3 per slider, you’d probably want to order 3 for a full meal.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Burger patty: 4      Bun: 4      Toppings: 5

The Meatball Shop
170 Bedford Ave
between North 8th St and North 7th St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718.551.0520

2 other locations in Manhattan – see website for addresses

YumVeggieBurger review #79

La Cocina del Sol

Happy New Year!

I'm back from the holidays, very excited for the fresh start of a new year, but my first veggie burger post of 2012 is going to be a nostalgic one: one of the earliest veggie burgers I ever ate at a restaurant, back in Virginia where I grew up.



Going out to dinner at a restaurant was a rare and special treat with my family, growing up. Living in NYC now, I’ve become accustomed to a lifestyle where it is much more common, for better or for worse (we have so many restaurants to choose from in this city! It’s impossible to resist, although my bank account would probably be better off for it if I did). But even as infrequently as our family would go out to eat, I remember going to La Cocina Del Sol quite a few times. They first opened the summer before I left for college, but it became one of our favorite places to go out to dinner whenever I was home for holidays or a summer break.

I liked this place especially because they served one of the better veggie burgers that I remember eating as a teenager. I hadn’t eaten there in over two years, so when I visited my parents this year for Christmas, I wanted to go back and see if it was as good as I remembered.



The menu calls their veggie burger the “Santa Fe Vegetarian Burger” (the restaurant serves primarily Mexican/southwestern food) and says the patty is made with roasted corn, Anaheim pepper & artichokes. In retrospect, I’m amazed I liked this burger so much as a teenager as I have never cared for artichokes! Everything is mashed together in the patty though, so I didn’t really notice them. It’s definitely a pre-made patty, but it’s a pretty good one. Must have some soy in it for texture too, as it’s more chicken-like than beef like and holds its shape well. The restaurant told me it’s a vegan patty – no eggs binding it together, even though the default toppings aren’t vegan and they weren’t sure about the bun.



The bun was one of the best things I remembered about this burger – a rosemary thyme roll, which proved to taste just as good years later as it did when I first enjoyed it. A nice, sweet and herby complement to the southwestern flavors of the rest of the burger. Yes, it doesn’t seem like that would work as well as it does, but it really tastes great!



The toppings include cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and chipotle mayo. I asked for mine without cheese, something I would have never done a couple years ago (I remember it being very good with the cheese) but I am still a sucker for chipotle mayo. It comes with fries or corn on the cob - I opted for the fries.


With a tall glass of horchata, of course.

So, was it as good as I remembered? Pretty much! I have to admit, I’ve tried a LOT of different veggie burgers in the intervening years, so my palate is a bit more refined, if you can say that about something like veggie burgers, haha. But it did taste like I remembered – and I enjoyed it. And it gets extra points for that nostalgia factor. It’s nice to know that it hasn’t changed, because maybe some teenage newly-vegetarian kid in rural Virginia is enjoying it now too, and learning that vegetarian food can truly be delicious.

Cost: $7.50
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Burger patty: 3      Bun: 5      Toppings: 4

La Cocina del Sol
1200 Crozet Ave
Crozet, VA 22932
second location in Charlottesville – see website for address

YumVeggieBurger review #78

Happy Holidays!

I'm off traveling and spending the holidays with my family and pets, so here's to you and yours and Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas Eve!



I'll have some new posts up after the holidays, including an old favorite veggie burger from my hometown which I just had the chance to enjoy again last night for the first time in several years, and finally photographed for a blog review :)

Union Square Holiday Market: Mighty Balls

Question of the Day: Does a meatball slider count as a burger?


I confess, I have a sentimental weakness for the Union Square Holiday Market. Sure, it’s a lot of the same stuff year after year and it’s way overpriced and I rarely even make any purchases… but I love just walking through the festive atmosphere and looking at all the beautiful things under all the holiday lights.



This year, a new vendor caught my eye – Mighty Balls (har, har), serving gourmet meatballs on heros and sliders. Sliders! That means burgers, right? Their menu said they had veggie balls. So I decided that, even though you could argue it’s not really a burger, I had to try them.



I ordered two sliders – you get to choose your balls and your sauce, so I got African Onion sauce on one of my veggie balls, and Cranberry Horseradish on the other. All of the sauces are vegetarian except for the “Not Your Average Brown Sauce” – which I appreciated the vendors warning their vegetarian customers about. The balls themselves contain egg and cheese, so they’re unfortunately not vegan-friendly.


They look like burgers to me!

The Onion Sauce was definitely the better of the two – saucy and tangy and the perfect compliment to the patty… er, meatball, I mean! And it had peppers and pieces of onions in with the sauce, so it was more than just liquid poured over the meatball. The Cranberry Horseradish was tasty but there wasn’t enough of it on the slider, so that one ended up being too dry.

The buns were light and sweet, easy to hold, kept the balls and sauce safely inside with minimal oozing out the sides, and were the perfect size to accommodate the veggie balls. The veggie balls themselves were a mixed mash of vegetables (I couldn’t really identify specific ingredients), fried on the bottoms, which really brought out the taste of the cheese in them. I probably would have appreciated this more if I still ate dairy with any regularity, but since I hardly ever eat cheese now I’ve kind of lost my ability to enjoy it. The balls were a little dry, but the onion sauce at least made up for that on one of the sliders.



Mighty Balls just opened last spring. They don’t have a brick-and-mortar location but they describe themselves as a “mobil vending company” and sell their meatballs at fairs like the Holiday Market and the Hester Street Fair, and do catering and other events. Check their website to find out where you can find them next.

Cost: $3.50 per slider
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Burger patty: 3      Bun: 5      Toppings: 4

Mighty Balls
Currently selling at the Union Square Holiday Market until Christmas, December 25th. Check their website for other upcoming events and locations.

I feel like there's enough of an argument to be made in favor of reviewing meatball sliders like burgers… or maybe I’m just trying to justify another trip to The Meatball Shop in the near future? ;)
What do you think?

YumVeggieBurger review #77

Gardein Beefless Burger

I heard some good reviews of Gardein’s faux-meat products awhile back, so I’ve been curious to try them. Especially after I learned that they make a veggie burger, too!



Described on the packaging as “The Ultimate Beefless Burger” this vegan burger patty looked pretty meat-like to me as it sizzled in the frying pan. I even felt a little nervous about it, it seemed so much like real beef! Instead of the infamous “hockey puck” shape of most store-bought veggie burgers, this one looked more natural, like a home made patty.



I loaded it up with avocado, greens, and hot sauce on a fresh roll. Avocado just goes so well on everything, in my book. Especially when they are on sale ;)




Close-up!

The taste is very similar to Boca’s traditional “hamburgers”. I didn’t find it very different at all, actually, except for the shape as I previously mentioned. I was surprised, because I had been expecting Gardein to be a vast improvement on the usual frozen veggie burger patty. The texture was that soy, faux-meat texture I think all vegetarians are intimately familiar with by now.



It wasn’t very flavorful on its own, maybe next time I’ll try slathering it with barbecue sauce while it’s still in the frying pan. Not terrible, but there are better store bought burger patties out there. Although I am a fan of Gardein’s other faux-meat products like their various flavors of “chicken” (which, I should note – come with really delicious sauces, which is probably why I enjoyed them so much more than the burger).

My local grocery store doesn’t seem to carry Gardein products, although when I went upstate for a weekend last month I saw a bunch of them at a big supermarket up there, even way out in the country, which surprised me. Where did I end up finding mine?



Bed Bath & Beyond! No, really. I didn’t realize they had so many food products either. But they do! And a lot of vegetarian stuff at that! I was quite impressed. And with one of those “save $5 when you spend $15 or more” coupons that I get from them in the mail every so often… it’s the perfect place to stock your freezer with a few bags of faux-meat products.

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Gardein
purchased at: Bed Bath & Beyond in Manhattan
price: $4.99 for a bag of 4 burger patties

YumVeggieBurger review #76

Vegetarian Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Post-Thanksgiving!

My family did several different Thanksgiving dinners this year, due to work/travel schedules and locations. One of these was an entirely vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner (!!!) because my cousin, whose family hosted the dinner, is a newly-converted vegetarian.

I made the amazing eggplant cashew nut roast that I make every year, and it was very well-received yet again:


and because my father's weakness is pecan pie, I made my first ever pecan pie as well:

As I expected, the ingredients are pretty much sugar, sugar, and more sugar. With a few pecans on top. Definitely the least healthy thing I ate all weekend.


How was your Thanksgiving?

BRGR

Although BRGR serves a veggie burger, their restaurant is full of pamphlets and propaganda about the merits of grass-fed beef, which made me feel kind of uncomfortable as a vegetarian. This is definitely one of those burger joints where the veggie burger is the ugly stepchild on the menu.



And it is another place with that “build your own” option as well as menu suggestions. I went with the “cultivated garden burger” – their suggested veggie burger combination, because I assume that this is the way a restaurant believes their burger is best showcased, and I like to give them a chance to show me their veggie burger at its best!

The friendly cashier told me they had just switched over to using a new kind of veggie patty – she knew for sure that it was vegan, but couldn’t tell me whether the bun it is served on contained dairy or not. I feel like, even though I’m not even vegan myself, I am constantly educating people on the difference between vegan and vegetarian because I sincerely want to make this blog a useful resource for veggie burger lovers of all kinds.

And inevitably I encounter a lot of restaurant employees who have never even considered the fact that bread often contains dairy. To be fair, I didn’t think about that myself until I lived with some vegans in college. A lot of restaurants seem proud to announce that their burger is vegan, because the patty is free of animal products. But then they hesitate and admit that they aren’t sure about the ingredients in the bread. Vegans aside, with the number of lactose-intolerant people in the world, I find this pretty shocking! And at BRGR in particular, because their whole shtick is “grass-fed beef”, this lack of knowledge about ingredients seems hypocritical (or I guess it only applies to meat?).

Anyway, my burger…



The patty was very hearty, chock full of seeds and grains, along with peppers, peas, and that familiar soy-based texture. There was a tanginess to it that I couldn’t quite place. I wish it had been a bit firmer or crispier, overall it was just too mushy to impress me.



The default toppings from the menu included gruyere cheese, avocado, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. The cheese was more rubbery than melty and gooey, and I felt cheated by the couple of sad-looking small pieces of avocado. The herbed mayo was quite good, but its taste competed with that of the pickles, and I think I would have preferred just the pickles.

The bun said wheat, but it was too light-colored to be whole wheat. Very soft, and fresh (points for that!), sprinkled with seeds. It would have actually been more delicious on its own with just a bit of butter, rather than a burger. The sweetness of it was nice, but not a good match for the tangier, more savory flavors of the burger.


I think this is my new favorite veggie burger photo, what a wonder colored backgrounds can do!

Cost: $9.95
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Burger patty: 3       Bun: 2       Toppings: 3

BRGR
1026 3rd Avenue
New York, NY 10065
212.588.0080
second location in Chelsea – check website for address

YumVeggieBurger review #75

Strange Matter

I went down to Richmond again last week to visit my good friend Christine – and because there are still a number of veggie burgers I did not try on my last visit, I took the opportunity to scratch one more off the list. Not to mention that being away for a three-day weekend provided the luxury of time to do such veggie-burger eating. I’ll be honest, my tv job is keeping me so busy that I don’t find myself with as much time for veggie burgers or blogging as I had in the past when I was more sporadically-employed. No regrets, since I love my job – but, just not enough hours in the day sometimes.

So I borrowed Christine’s bicycle and peddled over to Strange Matter – which is a cute alternative restaurant in the daytime and seems like it turns into a great live music venue at night. Definitely the kind of place I could see myself spending a lot of time in if I lived here. Richmond has quite a vibrant alternative and vegan side to it, which impressed me – and if I’m saying that after living in NYC for years, you know it must be true!



There are a ton of vegan options on Strange Matter’s menu – I wished I could try more of them. Vegan buffalo wings and vegan white Russians, among other things, caught my eye.

I ordered a drink called a Laura Palmer (how could I resist?) and then got into a conversation with the bartender and her friend about Twin Peaks, and showed them photos of my Halloween costume. Because I'm a dork like that.



The vegan lentil burger came with 1 side dish, and while there were a lot to choose from, I settled on the vegan macaroni. It was amazing, possibly the best vegan macaroni I’ve had at a restaurant (I make my own, which I think is pretty killer, so I’m often disappointed by restaurant versions). Thick and creamy, perfect comfort food. I would probably eat this at least once a week if I lived in Richmond.

Luckily the portions weren’t insane, so I still had room for the main attraction – the veggie burger!



It was just as delicious, a spicy patty of lentils and carrots – rather mushy, but it still stayed on the bun surprisingly well. I splurged and added vegan cheese (50 cents extra) to my burger, which was the perfect combination with the fresh spinach and tomato that it came with. The orange cilantro veganaise sauce was lighter than I was expecting, but still added a nice hint of flavor to the burger.



The bun was the only part that hit the “just average” mark – I’m biased towards more hearty, granier buns.

I saw a notice on the menu that all the burgers are half price on Tuesday evenings, too. So if you are in Richmond, I’d recommend checking this place out!

Cost: $7.25 (+ $0.50 for vegan cheese)
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Burger patty: 4      Bun: 3      Toppings: 5

Strange Matter
929 West Grace Street
Richmond, VA 23220
804.447.4763



YumVeggieBurger review #74

Happy Halloween!

MorningStar Tomato & Basil Pizza Burgers

I bought these on sale awhile back, but they were just sitting in my freezer because usually when I have a craving for a burger, I don’t want it to taste like pizza. That’s a pizza craving – very different. And answered with a pita, some sauce, and daiya toasted under the broiler for a few minutes… mmm.

But eventually I had to try the “pizza burger”.



I figured since it was already pizza-flavored, I’d top it with tomato sauce and daiya mozzarella… under the broiler for a few minutes to toast the bun and melt the daiya.



Looks pretty delicious! And it wasn’t bad. I mean, you really can’t go wrong when you had sauce and gooey melty daiya. The burger patty itself was definitely strongly flavored with basil and oregano, the usual pizza flavorings. I don’t know if I would have really enjoyed it without the sauce and daiya though – on its own, or with more traditional burger toppings like lettuce and tomato, it just wouldn’t be that great.



And I was disappointed to realize that this was another one of those MorningStar products that is not vegan – actually, the box advertises that it has mozzarella and provolone inside the patty (I didn’t look at it too carefully). Since I can only eat a limited amount of dairy, I thought I was doing a good job by topping it with daiya – but I hadn’t counted on cheese being inside the patty!

I don’t think I’ll buy these burgers again – both because the taste wasn’t so amazing and because of the cheese. But there may be more pizza burgers in my future… those toppings were pretty delicious. I’ll just put them on a different patty next time.

Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
MorningStar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Burger
purchased at Key Food in Astoria
price: on sale, 2 boxes for $7.00 (regular $5.49 per box -4 patties per box) for

YumVeggieBurger review #73

Yet another burger joint in Astoria?

Last weekend I snapped this photo as I walked past the under-construction facade of the new "Burger Club" restaurant on the corner of 30th Ave and 32nd street.



Although they already have their website URL printed on the awning of the building, the site itself doesn't offer any information aside from "COMING SOON".

Seems like my neighborhood is in the midst of a gold rush of burger joints right now. Will this latest edition be any good? Will it be able to stand up against Bare Burger's two locations?
Most importantly, will Burger Club offer a veggie burger on their menu?

Sunshine Burgers

I wanted to try a new brand of store-bought veggie burger, so I picked up a box of these the last time I was at Whole Foods (which has by far the biggest selection of frozen veggie burger patties). I’d never heard of Sunshine Burgers before, but they looked good (and weren’t as expensive as some of the other options!).



The box says “not meant to be a beef imitation but an excellent flavor sensation of their own” – that’s my veggie burger philosophy too! These patties are organic, vegan, and gluten-free as well.



I fried a patty (frozen, straight from the freezer – I never let them thaw, and some packages even tell you not to) with a little bit of olive oil on my stovetop. And because I was craving sweet peppers, I sautéed a few slices of those for toppings. With barbecue sauce. Yum.



The patty was delicious – the flavor was very rich and nutty. Slightly sweet but still savory. If you don’t like sunflower seeds, I can’t imagine you’d enjoy this, because it tastes very strongly of them. But that was a plus for me, as I enjoy them quite a lot. The ingredients are so simple – listed on the box as brown rice, ground raw sunflower seeds, carrots, herbs, and sea salt. That’s it! But so tasty.

And yes, that’s one of those amazing buns that I buy at my local Greenline Organic Grocery. These buns are my first choice for making burgers at home.


I was really, really craving barbecue sauce at the time.

While nothing beats the convenience of the Morningstar and Boca products that my local grocery store carries, and nothing beats the price of Trader Joe’s burgers… as far as taste goes, these Sunshine Burgers may be one of my new store-bought favorites. I bought the “original” but on their website it looks like it comes in other varieties too, so maybe I’ll try one of those next.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Sunshine Burgers
purchased at Whole Foods
price: $4.39 for one box of 3 patties

YumVeggieBurger review #72