Arguably more than any other dish, spaghetti and meatballs gets relegated to the children’s menu, as if it doesn’t merit a seat at the big table with pasta Bolognese or even mac and cheese.

So what to make of Tom Douglas’ $15 all-you-can-eat-spaghetti-and-meatball Monday at Cuoco? That shtick hearkens to school fundraisers hawking endless pasta bowls for (fill in the blank for classroom supplies). It does not exude we take spaghetti and meatballs very seriously.

But you know what? Cuoco’s is one of the best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve had in the city. It also makes for one of the best cheap meals on Monday nights.

If you’ve dined out during these past dreary winter months on slow restaurant nights, you likely noticed the forecast was cloudy with a chance of meatballs. Many restaurants started parading spaghetti deals (meatballs or with red sauce) on Sundays and Mondays.

Chieftain, the college dive by Seattle University, does an all-you-can-eat $10 spaghetti and red sauce on Monday nights. It tastes like high-school cafeteria lunch (I call it stoner food for starving students).

In Madison Park, The Attic Alehouse does a meatier and cheaper version on Sundays, a $9 feast with unlimited pasta bowls, beef-and-mushroom sauce, sides of toasted bread and a salad.

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Spots that serve it with meatballs usually charge by the bowl, but I would argue Meatball Mondays at South Lake Union’s Buca di Beppo don’t qualify as all-you-can-eat simply based on semantics. For $22.50, you get tennis-ball-sized meatballs (1.5 pounds of beef) with 48 ounces of spaghetti and bread. That could feed the Brady Bunch. A half-order costs $17.50. The meatballs tasted gummy. But you likely won’t quibble once you see the portion size. It’s as much a dare as a meal. The marinara sauce was so sharply acidic the pasta won’t go down easy, so you likely won’t finish.

On Capitol Hill, Dino’s does a big three-meatball plate ($12) every Monday, though the highlight is the squishy, garlicky roll with caramelized cheese. (The roll is offered as an add-on for a buck.)

On Phinney Ridge, the sports bar The Whit’s End will host spaghetti-and-meatball Sundays during the Seahawks season.

But no one gives this pseudo Italian dish more attention and kitchen real estate than Cuoco. Its fresh spaghetti is pulled out of the pasta machine by midafternoon for the dinner run. Meatballs are formed with beef, pork, veal and — its secret ingredient — smoked provolone. Marinara is made with piquant sweet San Marzano tomatoes. To finish, the dish gets dusted with two-year-aged Parmesan-Reggiano.

The brawny spaghetti is slicked with olive oil with clinging flecks of parsley. The salty, fatty-rich meatballs are tempered by the delicately acidic tomato sauce. It’s better than any all-you-can-eat-pasta-deal needs it to be.

The bad news: If you like your noodles al dente, you’re out of luck. Too many Amazonians complain it’s undercooked, so the kitchen stopped serving spaghetti al dente. At least we can be thankful the spaghetti and meatballs aren’t sitting in a vat or under a heat lamp. Each bowl is made to order. (The kitchen goes through 70 to 100 bowls on Mondays.)

Throw in a bottle of house wine for $25 during happy hour (2-6 p.m.) and, well, patrons aren’t exactly hurrying to give up their seats in under an hour.

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Cuoco, 310 Terry Ave. N., Seattle; runs the all-you-can-eat deal every Monday 4:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.; 206-971-0710, cuoco-seattle.com