Poké Bowls at Poké Shop Bristol

My love affair with Japanese food is well documented. When I walked past the window of Poké Shop, where Hanoi Coffee Company used to be, I was thrilled. Poké bowls in Bristol? Surely just a fantasy of the future? But no. Poké bowls have been speeding up the trend food charts faster than a coyote after a roadrunner. The Hawaiian/Japanese crossover was already a household name in California and the like but is still fairly new to the UK. Poke bowls are a raw fish salad, mostly spicy tuna, salmon or octopus it is also filled with rice and pickled veg topped with a number of items such as spring onion, sesame seeds, avocado and crispy onions, but the list is fairly extensive to what you can top your poke bowl with. 

The first place to offer poké bowls is by the owners of ramen joint Sticks n Broth. The Poké Shop in Bristol offers Spicy Tuna and Salmon as their fish options currently but they come with 5 different selections of toppings. I have so far sampled the Oki poke and the smoky poké. Poké bowls are a great lunch alternative to those who enjoy raw fish. The idea is you poke around in the bowl and see what combo you come out with. This has fast become a firm favourite with work friends for a healthier lunch alternative that tastes delicious. Being able to enjoy a sushi vibe without having to spend a tonne of money on a set or selection of dishes. My smoky poké for example had raw and smoked salmon, seaweed, edamame, spring onion and sesame seeds topped with Japanese mayo. If you can’t decide what poké to have they also offer a tuna or salmon lunch poké bowl which is filled with whatever they fancy on the day for £6.50. 

The Poké Shop also offer sushiritos, a sushi burrito with rice instead of tortillas, although they have just started trying out Japanese style fish tacos which sound pretty interesting. The sushiritos needed a tighter roll and a bit more work before the reach the levels of the one I had at Sushirito in NYC but the idea is a good one and I hope they work at it because I personally can’t get enough of this concept and am looking forward to seeing more poke bowl options in the future. If you are looking for more details about the Poké Shop, visit their twitter account @pokeshopbristol. 

Friday Night Testing Out Yatta

Last Friday evening I was treated to a visit from my best girl Jessie, so we decided to take her out for some food. It was decided we should test out Yatta, the latest incarnation on Nelson Street. Over the years this has been many different Asian restaurants, Shanghai Express, a personal favourite, the Wok Cafe and Buddha Lounge to name but a few. Yatta offers an all you can eat sushi experience for £16.80, per person, but also a half price on all al la carte menu items at lunch time. 

We were given a warm welcome  by the staff and led to a table for four. They provide a tick box menu to order your chosen dishes. One side of the menu consists of sushi and the other hot dishes and sides. You are limited to ordering 6 from each side for each round. There is a pretty large selection, gyoza, wok fried noodles, teriyaki and tempura as well as futomaki, sashimi and nigiri to name but a few. We ordered a selection of dishes from both sides and waited for them to arrive whilst sipping our drinks. The lighting could be a little more subtle in the evening I found it a little too bright for my tastes. 

chicken gyoza

chicken karaage

prawn tempura

spring rolls

The food arrived promptly. The dishes I found to be mixed in quality. Our chicken udon ramen was tasty and well cooked, the sushi was well prepared and pretty delicious. The sashimi in particular was thick and fresh. Some of the other dishes could have done with a few changes to make them a bit better. The tempura prawns for example were a little soggy and needed more frying for colour and crispness. The chicken kara-age were nothing like any I've ever tasted and were not at all crisp. They need to make just a few tweaks to some of their hot dishes to bring them up to the same level.

Having said that for £16.80 for unlimited orders you could quite happily order a lot of sushi, sashimi and noodles. I would return again but it wouldn't be the top of my list. But for groups it is quite a good way of trying out lots of sushi dishes for a decent price. I certainly have my eye on the karaoke place above Yatta. To find out more about Yatta visit their website for more menu details,

An Anniversary Celebration at Noa

Just over a week ago Rich and I celebrated four years together. After not the best month luck wise we decided to just go for a low key meal, saving the big celebration for next year. So we thought something light and quiet on a mid week, why not Noa. Rich had been a few weeks before with some friends and said how good it was compared to the first time we went a number of years ago, it seemed perfect for a mid week celebration. So I got dolled up in my finery and we headed for a pre dinner cocktail at Amoeba, where I always have a Thai daiquiri, one of my favourite cocktails of all time, fragrant but without being too sweet.

As we arrived at Noa at the same time as a new waiter was turning up for his first trial shift, he looked nervous, but I had every faith. We ordered a bottle of wine and decided to go for the set menu plus a bit of sushi on the side, I can never resist a portion of salmon sashimi, and we also ordered some maki rolls and a portion of inari. So for our set menu we both ordered the chicken karaage for our starter and for our mains Rich picked the katsu curry and I the salmon wasabi don.

Salmon Sashimi

Tempura Prawn Inside Out Rolls(Uramaki) and Inari 

The sashimi was more thinly cut than I have had before, the flavour and quality were very good though.  The uramaki rolls were well filled but the sushi rice wasn't quite as good as I've had in other sushi places, plus the inari (beancurd wraps) were more like little sushi dog kennels, because of their open sides.

Chicken Karaage

As for our starters the chicken karaage was coated in a very thin light crumb/tempura hybrid, it kept the chicken really juicy and succulent. Extremely tasty and good sized portion, which wasn't greasy at all, but that is to be expected with Japanese food.

Salmon Wasabi Don

Chicken Katsu Curry

My main was marinated sashimi scattered on rice, extremely tasty and very healthy. I was not really sure what to expect when I ordered it, but as I love salmon I was happy to go with whatever turned up. It was really fresh and clean tasting the salmon was chunky and they didn't scrimp on the portion either. The pickled ginger they provide is not the usual peachy pink coloured stuff most sushi restaurants provide, more like a pale yellow colour, more like actual pickled ginger should look. I have to say it was much better in taste, delicate and more refreshing.

Rich loved his katsu curry, definitely one of his most favourite dishes to order when we go for Japanese cuisine. This one was very fragrant, the sauce was much lighter than some katsu's and the crumb on the chicken was so crispy but without drying out the chicken. There could have perhaps been a bigger portion of rice as there was a lot of sauce left over after Rich had finished his meal. We ordered our desserts, although we were feeling pretty full already. Rich went for  Yuzu cheesecake and I went for the green tea ice cream as I've always wanted to try it, because it has been enthused about by so many of my friends.

Yuzu Cheesecake

Green Tea Ice Cream

Yuzu tastes a lot like grapefruit so the cheesecake was pretty sharp in places and slightly bitter. It was quite a generous portion but not something I would have gone for personally. Sadly my green tea ice cream was all crystalized so had to crunch through a scoop which compared to the lovely soft Marshfield ice cream we had sampled the week before it was a bit of a let down at the end of the meal. I could see myself really liking green tea ice cream as the flavour, when I could taste it through all the ice, was really lovely.

On the whole was impressed with the food at Noa, apart from the dessert, the set menu was under £20 each  and the sushi was standard price for what you would pay in most places. I am keen to return to try some of their non sushi dishes as I have a feeling this is where they really shine.

Sushi: Up Close and Personal

For Father's Day I took my dad to Obento, he adores sushi so it was the perfect place, and easily the best sushi in Bristol. As I have already covered Obento in the blog once or twice I will mainly be using this post to showcase some of the great photos dad took testing his new compact camera out. If this doesn't get your taste buds salivating for sushi, nothing will.

Deluxe California Roll

Salmon Sashimi

Obento's Infamous Dynamite Rolls

Inari, Salmon Nigiri and Salmon Teriyaki

Close up Tuna Dynamite Roll

Excellent Japanese Lager

Remember Obento does half price on selected sushi Sunday through to Thursday this also includes evenings to make the most of a terrific bargain. For a full menu check out their website.

Bank Holiday Dinner at Masa

It was bank holiday Monday and it was traditionally pouring with rain when Elisa and I walked down to the centre of town to meet Jamie. Having always preferred my sushi from Obento, for the dynamite rolls alone it would be enough, when Jamie told me that Masa did an all you can eat style dinner for £17.95 I was curious. Unlike other all you can eat style places in Bristol like Cosmo and the terrible Za Za Bazaar, Masa cooks everything fresh and will deliver whatever you have ordered to your table. The menu does not just consist of sushi. You can order teppanyaki items, fried noodles, rice, tempura and katsu curry, to name but a few.

Thrilled by the choice on offer us three girls decided to order a few items to share and just re-order when needed. So we went for two bowls of edamame, which I've never had before but I would definitely encourage everyone to try as they were so much nicer than I imagined them to be.

Edameme

We also went for some sushi, teppanyaki steak, noodles and mixed tempura. All in all we probably ordered about 3 rounds of stuff to make sure we tried a bit from every section represented on the menu. One of the first things I noticed was that the service was very friendly and we were not kept waiting long for any of the items.

California Rolls and Salmon Nigiri

Mixed Tempura

The food was excellent. The mixed tempura was light and crisp and they didn't scrimp on the prawns which were enormous. The beef we ordered from the teppanyaki melted in the mouth and the juicy chicken terriyaki came sizzling to the table in big chunks. Our katsu curry was zingy with a crunch, plus I got to try agadashi tofu again which was much better than the first time at Obento, as it was a better tempura batter and the stock was a stronger flavour.

My only complaint about Masa is that it is not as good for sushi as Obento is, the rice was not as soft and the fish was not as meaty. However their tempura especially, was the best I have ever tasted and there are many other dishes to choose from on the buffet menu. What was so great about all you can eat Masa style was that none of it had been sitting warm in trays for a couple of hours. Japanese food is definitely one of my favourites and it can be a lot lighter than Chinese so it was a nice feeling when we finished our meal feeling full but not in that overly heavy way that you can experience when over indulging at a buffet.

Vegetable Noodles

Sizzling Chicken Teriyaki

Masa offers the option of their buffet menu all day but you can order from their main menu or sit at the sushi train at any time. Definitely worth checking out for the buffet deal alone as for £17.95, where you can order as much fresh food as you like, was a real bargain. Browse their menu here. Their website also claims to offer gluten free options which is a nice touch. Upcoming blogs for the week will be on Hong Kong Bistro in Bath and the new Toro Pan Asian on Park Street.

Party Fun and Hangover Sushi

So this will not be too long a post as this weekend was mostly consumed  by having a wonderful party in the upstairs room of The Park bar on the triangle and then taking nearly 2 days to recover. I did however on Sunday pick up some tickets to the upcoming Bristol Beer Festival next month and head to Obento for some of my favourite sushi. My birthday is on Sunday I am stuck as wear to go for dinner in the evening, any one got any recommendations for some lovely food that is open on a Sunday evening? Post suggestions to the Twitter page or in the comments section of the blog.

In the meantime here is a photo of my sushi. Enjoy. Pancake blog post to follow Wednesday.