Among the various treats offered at Kirby Café locations in Japan, one that really stands out is a side known as “Waddle Dee’s fried balls.” Instead of making a joke, I’m just going to let that one sit with you for a while.
Nintendo opened the first Kirby Café in Osaka, Japan in 2016, and since then, various locations have opened and closed according to the company’s whims and complications from the pandemic. I haven’t kept up with its menu changes over the years, but upon seeing a fantastic “deez nuts” joke on Twitter this morning (remember, I’m only 12 years old), I couldn’t help but do some digging.
As far as I can tell, this is a real dish that’s been offered at Kirby Café restaurants since late 2019, and as the photograph shows, the menu does refer to it as “Waddle Dee’s fried balls” in English. But an accurate translation, according to the Kirby wiki, is the much more innocent-sounding “Waddle Dee’s Lightly Hand-Rolled Pikora.”
Furthermore, the menu description indicates that they’re made from little pizza dough orbs rather than, you know, a video game character’s junk, which is quite a relief. Waddle Dee’s fried balls also come with cajun spices and maple syrup for dipping, if you’re so inclined.
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The lingering question, at least in my mind, is why they’re even called Waddle Dee’s fried balls in the first place.
Kirby Café, the story goes, was created when Kirby and a gaggle of Waddle Dees decided to open a restaurant. Of course, as a bunch of little goofballs, they didn’t know how to cook anything, so they enlisted frequent Kirby series enemy Chef Kawasaki to make the food. Waddle Dees help roll the pizza dough, but that’s hardly a reason to name the entire dish after them.
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My best guess is that the division of labor goes something like this: Chef Kawasaki prepares all the meals, Waddle Dees haul in all the supplies, and Kirby sort of just hangs out and takes orders every so often while eating whatever he wants since his name is on the building. That chef’s hat is just for show, apparently, but Kirby’s so cute (and powerful) that everyone just lets him do whatever he wants.
Anyway, I just spent 378 words explaining all this Kirby Café stuff because I think the word “balls” is inherently funny. Hope you got something out of it, because I sure did.
