The Kitchen on Main

Once upon a time, I was criticized for blogging about too many Asian restaurants.  Excuse me, but I hope people realize the majority of restaurants in the GVRD are Asian!  For the ones that are not, many are chain restaurants...  Even with this in mind, we admittedly do get a bit bored with the stir-fry and soup noodle thing from time-to-time.  So to change things up a bit after Monday night softball, we decided to share some balls (a bit ironic...).  In fact, there was an array of sauces including creamy ones...

So where did we get these balls?  At The Kitchen on Main Street situated in the former location of Tapas 23 and prior to that, one of my favourites - Crave.  With Milhouse, Judes and Boss Woman along for the ball-fest, we ended up sharing balls and sauce.  I dug into the Classic Beef Ball with fire-roasted tomato sauce first.  Although not super moist, the beef meatball was not dry.  It was definitely meaty with a slight chew with little in the way of filler.  Chunky with a touch of spice, the tomato sauce could've exhibited a bit more acidity, but it was pleasant nonetheless.  Covered in pesto and Parm, the Chicken Balls were pretty dark and firm on the outside.  However, it was relatively soft and moist on the inside. This dish was a bit too mild-tasting for us as the pesto didn't have much impact.

We ending up try the daily special which was the Veal Balls with gnocchi in a rose sauce. I quite liked this dish as the meatballs were moist and soft without being too loose.  The rose sauce was balanced and thick where it adhered easily to the ingredients.  Flavours were definitely mild and creamy, but it was sufficiently impactful.  The good amount of gnocchi were well-sized and texturally on point being soft without being mushy.  Our favourite of the night was the Lamb Chorizo ball in a mushroom cream sauce.  The meaty and appealingly chewy ball had a nice spiciness and savouriness.  It was tasty on its own, so the fact that the cream sauce was not aggressively seasoned worked in this dish.

Each meatball dish included a choice of side (except for the veal as it came with gnocchi already) and we tried the House-Cut Fries, Garlic Bread and Mac n' Cheese.  A touch soft, the fries were decent.  Although lacking in garlic, the bread was appealing and lightly crunchy.   The side of mac n' cheese was creamy and sufficiently cheesy while not overly salty. Unfortunately, our meal ended off with a dud in the Calamari with tartar sauce.  Since the batter didn't adhere properly to the squid, it slid off and became a one piece item on the bottom of the plate.  The dish was sorely lacking in seasoning and even the tartar sauce was not very flavourful. Despite this, the meatballs were pretty good and combined with a choice of side, it was something different than the usual.

The Good:
- Generally moist meatballs with not too much filler
- Choice of sides and sauce allow some customization and fun

The Bad:
- The calamari was terrible
- Not particularly expensive, but not inexpensive either