Polpetta
Polpetta was somewhat of a letdown. I can’t say that it was “bad” exactly; just not someplace we’d be anxious to re-visit. As I’ve said many times – there are way too many REALLY good restaurants out there to go back to one that was just “okay”.
A positive was that our server Ashley, was really knowledgeable and friendly, and helped us understand how the menu/ordering works. By the way; in Italian cookery, Polpetta means “a type of small meatball or rissole”, which is a giveaway as to what kind of place this was! It seems the new trend in the restaurant business is to let the patrons create their own dishes, with a few basic guidelines and Polpetta follows that trend. Basically, what each person does is to choose their type and quantity of meatballs (a nice variety of meats to choose from and some vegan options as well); choose a sauce, and finally, choose a side (or in our case, rather than a ‘side’, what you want your meatballs to sit on top of). Now there are a huge number of choices in each of these categories – far too many to list, so please visit the website to see the many possible combinations. While I think this concept is very cool, it only works well if the right type of food is being offered.
We started with a cheeseball, which was a spreadable mixture of several different cheeses and some almonds, served with some kind of toasted bread. It was “okay”. We were pretty tame when it came to ordering. Mr. Z had the pork/veal combination meatballs (3 LARGE balls) over spaghetti with Pomodoro sauce. He said the sauce was way too acidic for him, so he asked Ashley if he could switch to their Rosati sauce instead (it’s basically the Pomodoro with some cream mixed in, making it more of a blush sauce). Unfortunately, by the time he got the sauce, the meatballs and pasta were cold, plus she charged him $1.50 just to change the sauce (they should at least let you sample since there are so ,any choices). It got a little more creative, but still pretty boring. I had 3 sausage and pepper meatballs, over squash noodles with a paprikash sauce. The meatballs were pretty good, the squash noodles were have overcooked and half not cooked at all and the sauce was pretty bland (in all these years, I’ve yet to taste paprikash that has any flavor). In addition to the meatballs, sauces and ‘sides’; they’ve got several different starters, salads and desserts.
In any case, this is exactly why we love trying different places – some work and some don’t and like I said before….while it wasn’t bad, we probably won’t go back.
Polpetta is located at:
19900 Detroit Road
Rocky River
(216) 860-4474