If you find yourself in Chinatown for any of the lunar New Year celebrations and need a moment’s escape from the crowds, storm of lion dance drums and cymbals, and din from thousands of firecrackers, you might find reprieve at King Sha.
The restaurant opened in the space at Beretania and Smith streets that was formerly occupied by Yusura Japanese Restaurant. In a nod to the former tenant, King Sha offers a small selection of Japanese entrees, but photographs covering the exterior of the restaurant suggest its real specialty is the hot pot.
Those spoiled by hot pot shops with bountiful and varied ingredient and sauce options might want to stop reading here and stick with their own favorite spot. At King Sha the selections offered by its Taiwanese owners are minimal, but the quality is good with an emphasis on health.
This is a place where you may not need to crack open the menu. You can choose from the photos on the walls, though they can sometimes be misleading. Some meal sets, for example, showed a soup of the house specialty KC pork meatballs — a favorite when its owners operated KC Market in Kekaulike Mall — so it was a little disappointing to receive miso soup in its place. They also show some kind of deep-fried side dish over cabbage or some other green, but that is replaced with a lettuce salad.
Oh well. I didn’t waste too much time fretting because the hot pot was bubbling and ready to eat.
Ordering the hot pot starts with your choice of regular chicken soup base ($5.99), soybean milk base ($6.99), hot spicy soup ($7.99) or oxtail soup ($13.99), which comes with a helping of oxtail bones. We were discouraged from ordering the soybean broth because we were told the base is thick and requires constant stirring to make cleanup easier for the staff later. Hot spicy and oxtail soup it was for our dual hot pot, which came with a bouquet garni of Chinese herbs, plus dong quai, used in traditional Chinese medicine to address gynecological problems, fatigue, anemia and high blood pressure. A Chinese herbal brew is a newer soup option that isn’t listed on the menu yet.
The $12.99 hot pot comes with your choice of beef or pork (lamb is an option if you order a day ahead) plus a plateful of greens, enoki mushrooms and two pieces each of tofu, fish balls and pork balls. The meatballs weren’t quite enough, so we grabbed an extra mixed plate of fish and meat balls for $2.99. This is what I mean about limited variety. Your choice of extras is only six items deep. The other items are assorted veggies ($1.99), mushrooms ($2.99), tripe ($2.99), fish tofu ($2.99) and a mixed plate of beef, pork, lamb and shrimp ($4.99).
All is enhanced by DIY sauces you can mix at the counter from such ingredients as chopped garlic, cilantro, sesame oil, chili sauce, green onions, yellow mustard and soy sauce. I was very happy with the way our hot pot turned out.
Because the staff is not entirely comfortable speaking English, there can be some confusion. For example, we placed a side order of four pieces of fresh, glistening and perfectly cooked house-made gyoza ($3) but were confused to receive two plates.
It turned out the gyoza accompanied an order of unagi don ($13.75) to form a miniset. We are just more accustomed to Western-style a la carte dining, so it would have been helpful for us to read the menu more carefully, or for them to point out we were already getting gyoza.
Noodle soups form another large part of the menu, ranging from wonton soup ($7.50) to tempura noodle soup ($9.50). The e-mein-style noodles were not those I’ve seen used in soups locally, and I found them rather flat in flavor and texture.
Besides the hot pot, other menu highlights include teishoku-style meals with entree options that include lemony hot spicy garlic shrimp ($9.95), Chinese-style shoyu-simmered pork belly ($9.95), fried pork ($8.95) and tender tea-smoked chicken leg ($8.95).
The restaurant is a welcome addition in the Year of the Dragon.
———
Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser.
Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.
