Instead of a long list of spices with hard-to-pronounce names, three simple ingredients — salt, pepper and sugar — are used to flavor the Laotian meatballs at Sisavath Meatball Company in Rockford.
Kheun and Leua Sisavath moved to Rockford from Laos in 1979 and began selling their meatballs at social functions with friends and family. It wasn’t until 1989 that they started operating out of a facility on Seventh Street. They moved to their current location at 802 Broadway in the early 2000s because of its size, affordable rent and surrounding Laotian community.