There’s a wonderful “Build-A-Bear” feeling to going into a great poke restaurant. The fact that you can start with a bowl filled with rice (white or brown) and then pick your ingredients, sauces and toppings, gradually building your bowl into something personalized and delicious, is a real joy.
At the same time, it’s nice to have a bit of help and advice from the experts. Thankfully, the people at Nishi Poke & Sushi offer both. You can go in cold and completely build your own bowl (three sizes to pick from), or you can choose one of the bowls from the menu and adapt it as you see fit.
This isn’t our first visit to Nishi, and it won’t be our last. There are many reasons for our regular trips, and the quality of the ingredients is a big one. That, and the range that is available. You could go many, many times and find a brand new, stellar combination of items to toss in a bowl.
Last time, we opted for the Koa Bowl: Hawaiian salmon, Hawaiian tuna, spicy tuna, ahi tuna, crabmeat, sesame oil, danger sauce, spicy ponzu sauce. You read that correctly – three different types of tuna, alongside the salmon and other ingredients.
This time, we shook it up with the Hoku Bowl: Ahi tuna, Albacore tuna and Spicy tuna, Ponzu and sesame oil.
We started with a base of white rice – we had brown last time and wanted the sticky white on this occasion. The rice did its job and bound everything else together. The scoops of fish sat on top of that, with each type of tune offering something different.
We choose to have a bunch of vegetables on top of the fish, including sweet red onion, edamame, corn and seaweed salad. The latter is an essential ingredient for any poke bowl. Tangy and fragrant, seaweed salad is also delicious on its own and is an underrated food.
Finally, we topped the whole thing with fried onion and garlic, their house sauce and spicy mayonnaise. Again, that was all with the server’s advice.
Each bite was magical, and evidence that each one of us can create great things with a little bit of expert help. That’s the joy – making your own culinary art which both looks and tastes incredible. It smells amazing too. What’s not to like?
Nishi Poke & Sushi is located at 4263 Overland Ave, Culver City 90230. Call 310-837-5001 or visit nishipoke.com.