KC Meatball House

In my opinion, KC Kitchen used to make the best Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup (AKA niu rou mien) on O’ahu. KC’s niu rou mien had a rich, dark «hong shao» broth full of wonderful flavors of beef, star anise, cilantro, green onions, and garlic. It had chewy, but not too chewy, noodles and was accompanied with a good supply of pickled mustard greens. Unfortunately, the owner sold his business and (supposedly) took his secret recipe back with him to Taiwan about 4 years ago. I ate BNS at the new KC Kitchen and every other Taiwanese restaurant on this island but nothing came close to the deliciousness of the original KC. For 4 long years, I settled for eating really good Beef Noodle Soup only once a year when my wife and I would visit Taiwan.
Recently, Olivia D. reviewed KC Meatball House, which is located in the Kekaulike Market in Chinatown. She wrote about all the Taiwanese dishes they sell including as zongzi and various fish-​, squid-​, and meatballs. We needed something to toss into the leftover broth from Sweet Home Café, so my wife and I headed to KC Meatball House.
As Olivia mentioned, the Meatball House is tucked away in the back of Kekaulike. When I finally found it, I saw a display of various seafood and meat balls, zongzi, and other TW foods. A woman behind the counter smiled and offered us various types of meatballs to sample. They were very good. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man sitting behind the counter. I turned to look at him and did a serious double take. To my surprise, it was the original owner of KC Kitchen. My wife asked him if he sells Beef Noodle Soup and he replied «no,» but he gave us a large container of broth to take home. Several weeks later, my wife picked up Beef Noodle Soup broth and meat (cooked in the broth for hours) from here. It’s as good as I remembered and cost a small fraction of a plane ticket to TW. The former owner of KC Kitchen and the Meatball House were at the Kekaulike Market for 4 years, and we didn’t even know it. I probably would never have found them without Unilocal.Thanks Olivia!

I’ve rarely ventured to the back of Kekaulike Market, but I took a peek the other day and saw this new (I think) stall. As far as I can tell, they only sell Taiwanese-​style meatballs and zong. I went over to talk to them and ask them what else they had (I was hoping for ba-​wan), but they don’t understand English very well. All she told me was that she was getting a shipment straight from Taiwan the next day! «Of what?!» I kept asking, but that was all I got out of her. I did get a meatball sample out of the encounter. Their version is fresh, homemade and pretty large, but I’m not a fan of unrecognizably processed meat.
Taiwanese meatballs are not like, say, Italian meatballs. The «meat» is more like a paste (like fishcake) and the reason I have «meat» in quotation marks is because they have balls in every flavor: pork balls, beef balls, shrimp balls, squid balls, lobster balls, fishcake balls. .. you get the idea. I think the texture is why they don’t grab me; the meat is so transformed from its original state that it scares me a little. Or it could be because my mom fed me so many darn meatballs when I was a toddler. At dinner parties, when I was too young to hold a fork or operate chopsticks, she’d take one of her chopsticks, spear 5 meatballs on it, and hand it to me so I would be quiet while she talked with her friends. When I was done eating it, I’d get another. At one event, my mom’s friend finally pointed out to her that my mom had handed me so many makeshift shish kabobs that she was afraid I would just keep eating obediently until I exploded! Maybe that’s why I’m not fond of them.
I bought a zongzi from them for $ 3 and just finished eating it. It was good. Of course it’s not as good as my mom’s because commercially bought zong has more glutinous rice and less pork and mushroom filling (the good stuff) and is not as flavorful. This one could have used a bit more soy sauce and a lot more pork and mushrooms. It had a salted duck egg in it too. I usually try and avoid those, but I didn’t find it until it was already in my mouth!
For those who aren’t familiar with it, zong is that pyramid-​shaped thing wrapped in bamboo leaves and twine you might have seen hanging in Chinese establishments. Inside is a mixture of glutinous rice and fillings such as peanuts, dried shrimp, pork belly, and dried shiitake mushrooms, flavored with soy sauce and rice wine. You season everything, half cook it, wrap it in the leaves, then steam it. It’s a complete meal in one little package. Now that I think about it, if I had to compete in an ultramarathon or go off into the wilderness for a week, I’d tie a bunch of those bad boys to my belt first. Yeah.
Anyway, if you need a bunch of meatballs for your hot pot, or to keep your baby quiet, head on over to KC Meatball House! 3.5 stars