So I would think fish would be easy to find everywhere here in so cal but that is not the case. I am looking for a good fish market in Southern Orange County (Irvine, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo) to pickup to cook for dinner. There has to be a place close by and I'm am just completely missing it. ArticlePeruvian Flavors in Fountain Valley ArticleCajun Cooking at Ritter’s in Santa Ana ArticleEarly Report: Break of Dawn Best St.Honore Los Angeles/Orange County? Grand Mountain Sriracha in Orange Country Updated 25 days ago  |   Prime Beef: Mercer CountyPoke bowl concepts are blanketing Orange County and the trend doesn’t show signs of stopping. The Hawaiian staple is like a deconstructed sushi roll served in a bowl. Depending on the store, poke menus feature a bowl of rice (sticky or black rice) topped with raw fish such as tuna, salmon, scallops, and octopus. Other topping include scallions, sesame seeds and avocado. Some fusion version substitute rice with fries.

The steady flow of poke shops has inspired an annual tasting event and competition. Last June the 4th annual event was held in Huntington Beach. Here are a few of the many concepts in Orange County: Poke-Ria Sushi & Ceviche Bowls: The poke bowl chain opened its first location Feb. 10 at 1935 E. 17th Street #C in Santa Ana. The counter service eatery specializes in sushi and ceviche. Poke-Ria also has locations coming soon to MainPlace Mall in Santa Ana, Corona Hills Plaza in Corona Hills, Heritage Plaza in Irvine and Ocean Ranch Center in Laguna Niguel. The MainPlace and Ocean Ranch Center locations will open in March. The Heritage Plaza location will open in May and the Corona Hills Plaza location will open in June. Other locations are planned for San Diego and Northern California as well, company owner and president Mike Joher said. At Poke-Ria, customers can choose a small ($8.99), a medium ($9.99) or a large ($10.99) and then pick their base, fish and seafood and more.

The concept sources its fresh fish daily. Joher also owns Heat Ultra Lounge, a nightclub at Anaheim GardenWalk. “I saw an opportunity. I saw the wave. I’ve always wanted to do this concept and incorporate ceviche into this concept,” Joher said of branching out from the nightclub business. “It’s been a dream for me. My dream has become a reality.” Fins Poke Fusion: The poke concept will open a location at 513 N. Harbor Blvd. in Fullerton in March. Fins Poke Fusion has a location in Mission Viejo. In August, the restaurant opened after an extensive makeover from a sushi bar called Sushi Zone to become Fins Poke Fusion. It now focuses on poke bowls, macho rolls and fish tacos. It is owned by sushi chefs and brothers Peter and David Cho. The two partnered with restaurateurs Moby Duncan and Garo Mardirossian. Together, they created the poke concept. The restaurant allows guests to build their own poke bowl. Fins Poke Fusion plans to have five restaurants in Orange County by the end of the year.

Poke Dot: Poke Dot opened at The Square in Irvine in October. The restaurant offers customizable poke bowls. Poke Dot offers more than 20 ingredients for diners to choose from, including sushi-grade seafood. It is located next to Twisted Noodles and Jersey Mike’s Subs. North Shore Poke: The poke concept, which also offers sashimi sandwiches and poke tacos, will soon open a location in Costa Mesa. North Shore Poke already has a location in Huntington Beach.sushi maple ridge all you can eat The new shop will be located in a Bristol Street strip mall that recently added Creamistry, Capital Noodle and Halal Guys.where to buy fresh salmon for sashimi in manila MAR: Last year, MAR opened at 4th Street Market, a food hall in downtown Santa Ana. jiro dreams of sushi whole

It offers Latin-inspired seafood, including a wide range of poke bowls. Oke Poke: The popular Chino Hills poke spot will open a location at the Lake Forest Gateway Center. Oke Poke also offers build your own poke bowls. Customers start with a choice of rice, salad or chips then add fish, vegetables and toppings. The restaurant has not set an opening date.A few weeks ago, I went to the I Love Poke OC festival at Hotel Irvine expecting to eat my way through the latest build-your-own meal trend, which is all but hitting critical mass in Orange County.Over the last four years, I've watched as a proliferation of new single-subject restaurants sprouted from between the fast-casual-concept cracks, all using the historic, Hawaiian raw fish dish as the basis for a new Chipotle-style experience.sushi grade fish chula vista But instead of a day dedicated to some of the area's biggest names in pile-it-on poke bowl-ing, the intimate I Love Poke festival transported attendees right back to the islands, where a backyard-style party was hosted to honor poke's place in Hawaiian culture, not its new life as SoCal's latest food obsession."truyen vua bep sushi online

it's not a fad," said Chris Zarlitos, a vendor at the 5-year-old fest, who's pre-prepared poke (always without an accent, pronounced po-KAY) served at his parent's Filipino restaurant near San Diego. "After a year or two of eating poke at all these Subway-style places, people [on the mainland] are going to get poke'd out. They're going to be done. In Hawaii, it's sustenance. You eat it for breakfast or lunch because that's what's traditionally done. sushi samba book online londonThere, it's food, not a fad."youda sushi bar online It is estimated that for centuries before the arrival of Captain Cook, native Hawaiians hauled fresh fish out of the reefs, cubed them up and tossed them with sea salt, kukui nuts and whatever seaweed was floating by. It wasn't called poke then, just pupu — a snack — prepared at home by fisherman and their families and enjoyed with laughter and good friends.

Over time, the dish evolved with the influences that came to the island chain. It took on more Japanese flavors like shoyu and sesame oil. Deep-water seafood like ahi and octopus became more popular protein options. And while poke remains a family tradition for many in Hawaii, these days, its many flavor expressions can be easily found for sale by the pound everywhere from beachside shacks to grocery stores. The incorporation of sushi styles (Spicy tuna! and other Asian ingredients have today made the once-simple snack into something as diverse as the cuisine of Hawaii itself.But even as poke moved from auntie's recipes to store-bought creations (and eventually onto menus at seafood joints and fine-dining restaurant on the mainland), a few things remained at its core: a dedication to sourcing fresh fish, an interest in using top-quality ingredients and the need to maintain a connection to the island culture that made poke popular in the first place."Poke in Hawaii is something you grew up as a kid with," says Troy Wada of Honolulu's Da Hawaiian Poke Company, a third-generation poke master who flew from Oahu to serve both an old-school (salt, onions, kukui nut, rare Hawaiian seaweed) and new-school (shoyu sauce, furikake, crispy garlic, chili flakes) poke at the I Love Poke OC festival."

You eat poke from your favorite poke place because that's where your dad took you when you were a kid. Or maybe the fisherman who lives next door gave you a small piece of ahi and you cooked it at home. That's what poke represents."Wada says he wants to recreate that nostalgia for poke eaters on the mainland, and he's looking to open his first West Coast location in the Irvine area sometime next year. When Da Hawaiian Poke Company does open, it will be the first Hawaiian-born poke chain to come to Southern California. It's a responsibility Wada does not take lightly."When customers come to our [Irvine] store, we want to re-create that nostalgia for them where it's fresh just like how mom used to make it before dinner, or how uncle used to give us poke when he came home from fishing," he said. "That's how I think poke should be represented here." Every vendor at I Love Poke OC — more than half of which were from Orange County — brought this islands-bred vision of poke, one that, much to many Hawaiians' dismay, is in stark contrast to what is being pushed by the many minimalist, fast-casual so-called poke operations in Orange County.In this SoCal era of poke-as-cheap-health-food trend — where you pick your (potentially previously frozen) protein base and go down the line of ingredients only to have them tossed together with some imitation

crab and thrown on top of a pile of rice — Hawaii can be easily forgotten. Some people at the festival compared the build-a-bowl concept's detachment from authentic poke to Panda Express or Taco Bell, introductory places that let people dip their toes in a cuisine but that aren't proper representations of the culture."I like to call it mainland poke. That way if you're going to eat mainland poke, you can't expect certain ingredients you would on the islands, and that gives it room and cushion to be different," says Nino Camilo, founder of Hawaiian-American food blog Ono Yum and the I Love Poke festivals (its flagship is in San Diego).Camilo sees mainland poke as a good gateway to get people excited about traditional poke, and for the last few years, he's incorporated educational opportunities into his expertly curated events to help increase understanding of what exactly "traditional poke" means.At I Love Poke OC, this meant that in addition to presenting Hawaiian song and dance, the festival's stage played host to a fish-cutting demonstration by a machete-armed Josh Schade of Oahu's Ahi Assassins and a poke preparation demo where Wada created a batch of his famous Da Works poke for the audience.

It all starts with fresh (never frozen!) fish gutted and sliced with sushi-grade precision, and ends with a two-step mixing process that blends the dry ingredients first before incorporating the fish."The reason why we did [the demos] is because I feel the need to help educate people on what poke really is so they can know the difference," Camilo says. He notes that the knowledge of and passion for Hawaiian culture, and not the recipes themselves, really differentiate mainland poke from the real Hawaiian kind. I Love Poke OC vendors like 370 Common, North Shore Poke Co. and Poke OG are among the many outlets on the West Coast keeping the Hawaiian tradition alive."I've been to a lot of those Chipotle-style poke places and it lacks aloha. It lacks the care. It lacks the pride. My festival is about the culture, and it always will be about the experience that you're in Hawaii in somebody's backyard doing things the way it's been done."SARAH BENNETT is a freelance journalist covering food, drink, music, culture and more.