Pokerrito (Morgan Crossing)

Back in 2012, when the Poké craze initially began to take shape in North America, I was trying to keep up with all the new spots opening all over the place.  Seeing how it was growing exponentially, I decided to give up as I couldn't maintain the pace.  Predictably, many have come and many have gone as the market did get saturated.  However, quite a few have survived and are still doing well.  One particular chain is Pokerrito, which surprisingly I've never had a chance to do a visit.  With a menu tasting in hand, I finally got my chance at the Morgan Crossing location.

For those who aren't familiar, Pokerrito offers up classic poké bowls as well as some fusion bowls.  But as the name implies, they are known for their Poké + Burritos = Pokerrito.  Think of it as a really large sushi roll with all the goodness of poké inside.  In the picture above, you will find the Diamond Head   It was particularly impactful with the combination of spicy tuna, spicy seaweed salad, crab meat, ginger, masago, jalapeno, furikake, crispy onion and sweet chili.  Lots of spice with sweetness and tang.  This was the most flavourful of the ones we tried.

As for the Hawaiian Classic, it was much more subtle with marinated tuna, seaweed salad, sesame, radish, pineapple, sweet corn, pea shoots, tempura bits and shoyu.  As you can imagine, this was mostly sweet with some saltiness from the shoyu.and Hawaiian Classic Pokerritos.  In this picture, you will notice the nori casing and a thin layer of sushi rice. That meant we could totally taste the ingredients even more so than the bowl version.  Also, the textures were more apparent.

Now we had two different Pokerritos that resided at each end of the spectrum.  With the the Hanauma, we found something that fell somewhere in the middle.  We had it in both pokerrito and bowl form and they ate very differently.  The bowl version had much more rice, which in turn made each individual ingredient less apparent than the pokerrito.  Now it wasn't as if there was no impact.  In fact, it still tasted great with the buttery salmon, sweet imitation crab salad, ginger and wakame salad. I personally ate less of the ginger as it was sharp with a spicy and tangy bite.  In the pokerrito form, it was harder to pick out and that overshadowed the fish somewhat.  But then again, it was further enhanced by the lack of rice.

The North Shore Bowl had some elements from the Hanauma Bowl as well as the Hawaiian Classic.  Instead of salmon, we found fresh tuna with wakame salad, radish, edamame, pineapple and masago.  This was fresh-tasting with subtle flavours.  The addition of pineapple added sweet brightness and the imitation crab salad provided creaminess.  I think this would be good in pokerrito form since there would be less rice.  The tuna and pineapple would stand out even more.  Also no ginger would allow the other components to shine more so.

Onto something that was a bit different than the previous bowls, we had the Torched Ahi Tuna Bowl with soba.  Naturally, this added smokiness and varied texture within the tuna itself.  We had some slightly cooked bits while most of it was still raw and buttery.  By virtue of employing soba and seared tuna, this ate much more like a composed restaurant dish rather than quick service.  Really enjoyed the chewiness of the noodles combined with the crispy tempura bits.

If raw fish isn't your game, they also have some cooked bowls too including the Torched Miso Glazed Salmon Bowl.  If you are wondering, yes, this piece of salmon was fully cooked.  Despite that, it wasn't dry though, so it was flaky and moist with a sweet and salty sauce on top.  Nice smokiness due to the torching and lots of bite from the ginger on the side.  That was the only competing flavour in the bowl since everything else was mild.  Personally, I would've liked a more rare piece of seared salmon for this bowl, but not sure if that could be done?

Here is where we start to see some Korean fusion with the bowls.  First, we had the Torched Bulgogi Bowl.  This was aggressively sauced and then torched, which further intensified the sweetness.  We really had to mix this into the rice as it packed quite the flavour punch.  The ample beef was sliced thin and tender.  Some kimchi on the side provided some tang and mild spice.  Another variation was the Beef Bul-Dog.  So essentially bulgogi in a hot dog bun with some greens and crispy tempura bits on top.

Our last bowl was the Torched Spicy Pork Bowl.  This was just as saucy as the bulgogi bowl while adding the element of spiciness.  Once again, we had to mix this quite well to distribute the sweet and spicy sauce.  There was ample amount of pork that was tender and moist.  To compliment, we found some edamame, cubed tamago and kimchi as well as spring mix.  Great alternative for people who don't eat raw fish.

We had one more thing at the end and it was their Matcha Tiramisu.  Sure, it was a prepackaged item, but it turned out to be quite good.  The masacarpone was creamy and light while purposefully sweet.  With just a slight amount of bitterness, the matcha flavour was present but not overpowering.  Overall, the stuff at Pokerrito is solid and there was so many options available.  I love how you can have your poké as a large roll too since it not only allows for a different flavour and texture experience, you can actually have your poké and eat it too while on the go.

*All food and beverages were complimentary for this blog post*

The Good:
- You can have your poké as a handheld
- You can also have it classic style too
- Cooked items available

The Bad:
- The sauces for the bulgogi and spicy pork were rather aggressive, best to ask for it on the side