$5 food finds

Albondigas a la jardinera at La Tasca

The bill: $5.95

The dish: Spanish meatballs, served in a vegetable and tomato sauce

The scoop: We can't identify precisely what characterizes these meatballs as "Spanish," since they're not unlike many we've sampled at our decidedly non-Spanish family gatherings. (Not by choice, obviously. We didn't choose our family.)

Get your money's worth? They're big, sure. They even taste OK. But don't walk into La Tasca with a fin and a handful of change hoping for authenticity.—Mark Gross