Restaurants put best foot forward with takeout options Pick and choose your meal with Poké Mono By: Alison Gillmor Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2020

Opinion

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This article was published 30/09/2020 (1584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New downtown resto Poké Mono specializes in poke bowls, a modern version of the traditional Hawaiian food.

Poké Mono’s bowls start — as all good poke bowls do — with vivid presentation, the fish heaped in the middle with lots of colours and textures arranged around the edges, the flavours distinct at first and then blending together as you dig in.

Freshness is crucial for poke, and Poké Mono’s ingredients are very fresh, with good-sized chunks of seasoned raw tuna or salmon. There’s a nice balance in the supporting players: You might get smoothness from avocado, a little bite from radish, some cucumber snap, some wasabi heat, a finishing crunch from sesame seeds and fried onions, maybe some contrasting creaminess from drizzles of mayo.

House bowls include classic tuna or salmon varieties, a shrimp bowl, a laid-back California bowl made with crab meat and tobiko, and a tofu option.

You can also try the DIY route, choosing a base of brown or sushi rice or salad, then some fish, seafood or tofu, and finally add-ons like edamame, seaweed salad, mushrooms, mango, as well as a choice of house-made teriyaki sauce, sesame sauce, wasabi mayo or gochu aioli.

Poké Mono also serves up chonky sushi burritos (though I have to admit I’ve never really understood this fast-food maki-sushi-style hybrid).

The staff is very friendly, and the space is bright, open and airy, with some red accents, lots of greenery (and plenty of room for social distancing). This is also food that works well for delivery, which is available through DoorDash or SkipTheDishes.

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A small St. Vital spot, Red Foot Kitchen is currently doing takeout and delivery only, specializing in “KFC” — Korean fried chicken. The meat, both dark and white, is boneless, flattened out and double-fried to a satisfying crunch.

The original flavour is served plain, but you can also get your chicken sauced up with a nicely sticky “Spicy and Sweet” option, which combines a little chili pepper heat with brown sugar sweetness, or go for some dark, deep “Soy and Sweet” flavour.

A small side of vinegary pickled radish is a nice counterpoint. Other sides include potato puffs, which are basically tater tots. I’d go instead with an option that pairs two pieces of chicken with kimchi fried rice, dotted with little cubes of Spam, getting lots of complex flavour and a little heat from the kimchi, and mellowed out with a fried egg on top.

 

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca