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JERK CHICKEN INCLUDED A SPICY BLACK RUB PAIRED WITH A DEEP MAHOGANY SAUCE
MEATBALL MART {BY CHARLIE DEITCH} Beaver Falls may not be your prototypical college town, but located just down the street from Geneva College is a classic-style college eatery that’s worth a weekend drive or a detour if you happen to be in the area. The Ball Joint, as you might be able to guess, specializes in gourmet meatballs and homemade pastas, but not necessarily sold and consumed together. Although scratch-made jumbo macaroni and fettuccini smothered in sauce is an option, the real draw here are the meatballs and the wide array of dipping sauces. You can get your balls — Italian-style made from beef and pork, or chicken — in a basket with one or more of the Ball Joint’s 17 signature sauces. The meatballs are sizable and, well, meaty, with not a lot of filler. You can eat your fill for a buck a ball, with as many of the sauces you care to try. The marinara sauce is fine, but it is not the star on the sauce list, where livelier choices include: traditional buffalo, “Pennsyltucky Barbecue,” and the spicier “Siracha Slam” and creamy Cajun. My favorite, in spite of its silly name, is the tangy BALLsamic Zing. And that reminds me of another great thing about this place — a huge menu on the wall filled with balls-related jokes. And the laughs are cheap: Other than two family-style combo meals, there’s not one item on the menu priced more than $9. CDEITCH@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
3422 Fourth Ave., Beaver Falls. 724-417-7234 or www.iwantballs.com
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We’re e’re so consumed with local pizza wars rs that we forgett about the global obal battles. Why hy not take your issues to “11-time world pizza champion” Tony Gemignani i i? He’ll be signing copies of his book, The Pizza Bible, and doing a meetand-greet at two Pittsburgh stops on Fri., Feb. 13. 1 p.m., at Penn Macaroni, in Strip District, and 6 p.m., at Caliente, 4624 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield
ISLAND
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{BY ANGELIQUE BAMBERG + JASON ROTH}
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COLD NIGHT calls for a warm meal, and Jamaican restaurants deliver on a number of fronts. The island vibe evokes sunny beaches; jerk chicken can usually be counted upon to be plenty hot; and Jamaican restaurateurs, in our experience, are pros at the warm welcome. At Caribéana, in a little strip mall in Penn Hills, chef/co-owner/server Donette Howell-Wright’s welcome went beyond greeting us when we entered, beyond even introducing herself. She asked our names, too (including our kids’) as we o ordered. She then used them as the meal or proceeded — to deliver each dish to the pro one who’d ordered it, to politely ask an on inattentive child to make way for a plate ina and to inquire of each of us by name whether we were pleased with our food. And the answer, roundly, was yes. Though a couple items were unavailable on a quiet Tuesday night, there were plenty of options on the menu to satisfy a hungry family of four. Because it was cooked to order, our food did not arrive
{PHOTO BY HEATHER MULL}
Brown stew with red snapper, rice and beans, and mango juice
promptly. But Donette let us know that would be the case when we ordered, and we weren’t in a rush, so it was OK. We were comfortable in the dining room, which had the not-unpleasant vibe of a 1970s rec room, with potted palm plants, an aquarium and walls painted bold crimson where they weren’t covered with
CARIBÉANA
6022 Saltsburg Road, Penn Hills. 412-793-9937 HOURS: Mon.-Thu. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers, salads and sandwiches $2-9; entrees $10-15 LIQUOR: BYOB
CP APPROVED paneling. A mirror-backed bar that looked like it dated from about the same era as the paneling served as a place for Donette’s kids to hang out, doing homework and playing games, while their mom tended her business. Two iconic Jamaican dishes, fried plantains and jerk chicken, were the first we
ordered. The plantain rounds were fried up nice and crispy, not at all dried out, and came with a tasty, sweet-hot sort of pepper jam to enliven their native starchiness. Caribéana’s version of jerk chicken included a spicy black rub paired with a deep mahogany sauce. While the two seemed to share the same array of earthy spices, the interplay between their different flavors was delightful, the rub offering serious, peppery heat while the thick sauce provided a subtly sweet counterpoint. Beneath the jerk, the drumstick and thigh were moist and fall-apart tender. For the spice-averse, “brown stew chicken” was an ideal order. More meltingly tender chicken was deeply seasoned and lavishly sauced with tomatosweet pepper gravy, but not a bit piquant. The “brown” in the name refers not only to the color of the gravy, but to the preparation of the chicken: It’s marinated, then browned in a pan before being simmered in the stew. Garlic, onion, salt and pepper rounded out a flavor profile that was both comfortingly familiar — owing to CONTINUES ON PG. 16
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