Meatball District rolls onto West 39th Street

Kansas City has had mixed luck over the years with restaurants that focus on a single dish (as long as that dish isn’t pizza). The seeming simplicity of limited menus (crepes, baked potatoes, hot dogs) is the very thing that ultimately makes them tiresome. But a good idea, well-executed, can transcend novelty.

It remains to be seen whether restaurateur Kal Tandel’s basically good idea — he opened Meatball District in the former Saigon 39 space two months ago — is transcendent in this way. Can he can do for the 1.5-ounce meatball what Westport’s new Doughnut Lounge is doing for the cake doughnut?

Maybe.

For one thing, as Doughnut Lounge fans can tell you, liquor helps. Meatball District’s menu has built-in limitations, but its bar is where things are designed to open up a bit.

Now, the meatball-centric restaurant isn’t exactly a new idea. New York City’s popular Meatball Shop — created by chef Daniel Holzman and restaurateur Michael Chernow in 2010 — was successful out of the gate and expanded quickly. (There are also meatball-only restaurants in Cincinnati and Fort Myers, Florida.) That particular operation isn’t going to open in the Midwest anytime soon, but Meatball District’s menu is unabashedly similar to that of the Meatball Shop’s.

Tandel says he didn’t know there were other meatball venues around the country until he decided to open his own in Kansas City. “At first I thought I was going to open an Italian restaurant,” he says. “I make really good spaghetti. But I did some research and felt that just focusing on meatballs was a better idea.”

Tandel’s mother, he says, is a serious cook, preparing everything in her kitchen from scratch, so, following her lead, Meatball District makes almost everything — except the buns and the baguettes, which come from Farm to Market Bread Company — in-house. That includes the five sauces, the onion rings, the fried mac-and-cheese bites, and the four variations of meatballs (beef, pork, chicken and veggie).

The best-selling starter, a tribute to Tandel’s Indian heritage, are the light, airy meatball samosas, not a bit greasy and sided with a summery, fresh-tasting lemon-pesto sauce. These oversized pastry triangles are my favorite appetizers here, though the house-battered onion rings are also quite good.

The pingpong-ball-sized main attraction — which can be ordered with pasta or risotto or with one of four sauces — are certainly meaty enough (the binding ingredients are discreet), but not noticeably seasoned. They’re smooth and not unpleasantly bland (at least in the beef option I sampled), meant as vehicles for the sauces and the starches rather than as spheres engineered for individual perfection. The baguette sandwich is, in my experience here so far, the way to go. It’s hearty and big enough to share.

As for the sauce options, the tart lemon pesto is better than the thick classic tomato (which tasted a bit nondescript when I tried it). The Parmesan sauce, prepared with whipping cream, is far richer than traditional Alfredo.

Thick sauces are the norm here. The tzatziki served with the Greek meatball salad can’t be used as a dressing, because it’s almost pudding-like in consistency, but it’s very good and offers a cool note with the salty Kalamata olives and feta. What that particular salad needs most is bread.

Tandel plans to start serving Sunday brunch in mid-April, centered on just three dishes: two savory, one sweet, including churro balls. For now, Meatball District is open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.