Viral poke restaurant doesn’t live up to hype

Lately my Facebook newsfeed has become crowded with various food-related videos that either show you how to cook and bake food or depict various new creations at restaurants that have taken Instagram by storm. Insider Food is a page that showcases the latter. I recently watched a video about the “sushi burrito” in New York City from Pokeworks, which had over 30 million views. I took a trip to New York last weekend and decided to try the place out for myself. (No, I did not go there just to eat this burrito.)

I’ve never actually managed to try one of the famed places featured on this page so I was really excited. I had also been craving a good bowl of poke, which is a Hawaiian dish that consists of raw tuna over rice or salad. I’m from Los Angeles and poke and sushi burritos have been around for quite some time, so I’m relatively familiar with how they should taste.

Well, I was expecting somewhat of a wait but once I got to Pokeworks there were two separate roped-off waiting areas where customers stood outside in the cold. It took a solid hour before I was let into the store, so of course, once I finally was able to order (after another 30 minutes), I shamelessly got not only a burrito but a bowl of poke as well... All for myself. I stacked my bowl and burrito with tuna, salmon, cucumber, avocado, onions, masago, fake crab and garlic chips. The sauce I picked was Sriracha aioli, which is just a fancy way of saying spicy mayo. Some of the toppings offered were definitely non-traditional or at least not something I had seen before on poke, like mango chunks and edamame. The addition of avocado was a disappointing $1.50 extra just like at Chipotle.

After I finally finished paying, there was no space to sit and eat at this hole-in-a-wall restaurant. I had to smuggle my food into McDonalds and low-key eat it on the second floor. Clearly by this point I was really hungry because I had been waiting in line so long for this food. So the first bite was rather anticlimactic. Similar to a normal burrito at Chipotle, a downfall is that the ingredients aren’t mixed together well so you get a bite of only crab or avocado and little-to-no fish and then only fish in the next. Back home there are way better places to get regular and more authentic poke where I don’t have to wait more than five minutes. So the verdict about the sushi burrito and poke at Pokeworks is that it’s pretty average and definitely not worth the one and a half hour wait.

To be honest, you’re better off just getting a sushi burrito here in Baltimore. In fact, Shoyou Sushi in Federal Hill has a delicious sushi burrito, and Sticky Rice in Fell’s Point is always a safe bet for sushi and drinks with an American flare. (They also serve buckets of tater tots — literal buckets.)