Hong Kong Meatballs

Last month I was lucky enough to have several high school friends in town from various cities around the world. Going to school in Hong Kong means that these opportunities are few and far between, and always a blast! The first night we walked to Cha Cha Cha, a delicious cuban/tapas place on Haight st.

Apart from the tasty pitchers of Sangria, we ordered a variety of tapas, my two favorite below are the fried plantains and black beans (I'm drooling now...) and the patatas bravas:

But the real magic happened the second night when we decided that waiting an hour to get into Suppenkuche (another great restaurant) was not in our agenda. Instead, we piled into the grocery store, each tasked with grabbing different ingredients for a simple Italian meal; spaghetti and meatballs.

Doug convinced everyone that he would handle the meatballs, and surprisingly we all decided this would be fine. Back at my place, Doug decides to read the directions for the meatballs, realizing that 1) we didnt have bread crumbs and 2) this was going to take 3 hours. After blending up some old bread in my magic bullet for bread crumbs and declaring '3 hours? we'll do this in 15 minutes', we actually ended up with some delicious, mozarella-stuffed meatballs! Complimented with my new favorite salad (mixed greens, red onion, avocado, toasted pine nuts and parmesan), garlic bread, et voila!: