Noodles and Company Spicy Meatballs!

When I want a good, cheap, fast lunch, my mind usually thinks of two places: Chipotle or Noodles and Company. As much as I love to support my local business owners and their charming, independently-owned restaurants, more often than not I just end up going to one of these two places.

Chipotle, without any doubt in my mind, has some of the best Mexican food on the planet. I know it's fast food. I know it's owned by McDonald's. But it's still true. I usually get a burrito bowl with either the carnitas or barbacoa (both are incredibly tender and amazingly delicious) with rice, pinto beans, the onions and peppers, a mixture of the mild tomatoe pico and the salsa verde, sour cream, and lettuce. Now, that's a meal. But it's not a meal that you can really eat everyday, even though I've been tempted and even tried a few times.

Noodles, on the other hand, has a little more variety, with an extensive menu, and more varried entree selections. But, varried and extensive as the menu is, it hasn't changed in years and I've eaten it all a few hundred times over.

Until now that is.

Noodles has finally added a new menu item... and it's spaghetti and meatballs! As soon as I saw it on the menu when I stopped in for lunch yesterday, I knew nothing would be the same again. Don't get me wrong, I love the chicken and shrimp and beef options. But meatballs? What's better than a meatball? I don't love spaghetti, but I do love meatballs, and that makes all the difference.

And they are really good meatballs, in a really good marinara sauce, covered with parmesian cheese, and sitting on a huge mound of spaghetti. I got five meatballs, which is a good amount, but you can never have too many. They can me a choice of regular or spicy. I chose the spicy was was pleasantly surprised to discover that they were actually very spicy, and not just by Minnesota's sad standards. I ended up finishing my meatballs and most of the spaghetti before I gave up and got a to-go box. Of course, now I have a box of left-over spaghetti with no meatballs, but that's life.

Anyway, long story short, Noodles and Company now has spaghetti and meatballs. And you can even get the meatballs with any other dish on the menu, which I will probably do next time I go... which will probably every day for the rest of the week. They've got meatballs!