They have all different kinds of meatballs (veggie, pork, beef, etc.) and even have rotating daily specials. I tried the spicy pork, on a hero with tomato sauce and provolone cheese for $9. I had really high expectations, after all, with this kind of focus there is no excuse for blandness. The sandwich came out and there were a few things wrong. First, the meatballs are mushy. Tasty enough, but mushy. Every tasty meatball I’ve ever made was fried in oil until crispy. Crispy meatballs are delicious, the crusties keep the texture interesting and away from meatloaf. Apparently, after much research, some people bake them which leaves them mushy. How did they manage to dedicate a whole shop to them and forget to make them crispy? Second, there is hardly any cheese on these (see below)! Why bother letting people order cheese if you’re only going to sprinkle it on? Thirdly, these pork meatballs aren’t spicy at all. Oh, come on!
(Finally, how can they devote a third of their webpage to themselves. You’re very pretty, now get back in the kitchen and give me some damn cheese.)

After a whole hero I was pretty sickly full. I managed to cram down a half an ice cream sandwich ($4), which was pretty delicious. You pick each of the cookie sides and the filling and it comes out pretty much as you’d expect. The cookies were soft and delicious and the ice cream, was, well, ice creamy.

Skip the meatballs and just get a few ice cream sandwiches.

Uninspired Meatball Performance

Meatballs on Hero

3 balls per Hero

Brownie, chocolate chip and espresso filling.

Scoops!

We made a handful of delicious meatball sandwiches and along the way we discovered a few things.

• Meatball Mystery 1: Meatballs are not very hard to make. These took about an hour, which is well worth it for this level of delicious (a lot).
• Meatball Mystery 2: Homemade meatballs taste much better than the deli variety. They are more tender inside, they are a little smaller (in this case) and most importantly, they haven’t been sitting around feeling lonely all day. When your meatballs feel good, you feel good. You can heat them up with the sauce and avoid the wild temperature fluctuation that sometimes happen at delis.
• Meatball Mystery 3: They are much easier to eat when you don’t have excess sauce. By serving just the right amount of sauce, you can avoid soaking the bread all the way through and worrying that it’ll fall apart in your hands. I know I’m not the only meatball sub eater who has day-nightmares about stuffing meatballs into my mouth with my hands becuase the bread has disintegrated under too much hot tomato sauce. It’s horrible! Serve some sauce in the sandwich and in a little bowl on the side in case you want more half-wich through.

Meatball Sandwich Recipe (adapted from Cooks Illustrated “Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs “, published Jan 1 1998):

Meatballs
2 slices white sandwich bread (crusts discarded), torn into small cubes
1/2 cup buttermilk or 6 tablespoons plain yogurt thinned with 2 tablespoons sweet milk
3/4 pound ground beef chuck ( or 1 pound if omitting ground pork below)
1/4 pound ground pork (to be mixed with ground chuck)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
1 large egg yolk
1 small clove garlic , minced (1 teaspoon)
3/4 teaspoon table salt
Ground black pepper
vegetable oil for pan-frying (about 1 1/4 cups)
Instructions:
1) Mix bread parts and buttermilk in a bowl and mix with a fork until pasty.
2) Mix all ingredients in another bowl (including the result of step 1). Mix lightly with your hands. Use a spoon to grab the mixture and roll 1.5″ diameter balls in your hands.
3) In a large saucepan, add vegetable oil until it’s about 1/4″ deep. Heat until it sizzles when meatballs are added. Brown meatballs on all sides. When finished, set them aside on paper towels. Don’t let the oil smoke or it’s too hot.

Simple Tomato Sauce
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil leaves
Table salt and ground black pepper
Instructions:
1) Throw out the oil in the meatball pan, saving the bits on the bottom.
2) Brown the garlic in new olive oil, in the same pan.
3) Add all other ingredients. Simmer until sauce thickens, about 12 minutes.

Sandwiches:
1 loaf soft italian bread
Parmesan cheese, sliced and grated
basil, chopped

1) Add the cold meatballs back to the sauce to warm up.
2) Cut the bread into 8-9″ sections and add small slices of Parmesan cheese.
3) Toast the bread to melt the cheese.
4) Add 3-4 meatballs per sandwich and spoon a light portion of sauce ontop. Sprinkle on top with basil and grated Parmesan cheese.
5) Enjoy!

Raw, delicious meatballs:

Sizzle:

Heating with sauce:

The completed sub:

Laid open:

It looks bigger from this angle: