Sweetfin Poke, a chain originally from Los Angeles, opened a location in San Diego inside the UTC mall this past weekend. To stand out from all the poke shops that have saturated Southern California, Sweetfin Poke serves chef-driven California inspired poke.
A quick glance at the menu ingredients and you can immediately see the difference. Sweetfin’s bases include options like bamboo rice, forbidden rice, and kelp noodle slaw. Toppings include pickled shitake mushrooms, japanese eggplant, and chile marinated oranges. They also only serve sustainable seafood.
They have several signature bowls you can choose from or you can build-your-own. The signature bowls are a great way to start and they still allow you some customization because you choose five additional toppings for each bowl,
They also offer a variety of unique drinks, ice pops, and freshly fried taro chips.
Instead of working your way through the assembly line, you place your order and sit down and then the food is prepared and brought out to you.
Miso Kanpachi
Miso sesame shoyu sauce, blistered shishito peppers, red onion, carrots, shiso, market radish. My additional five topping choices were japanese eggplant, crispy onions, mango, jicama, and seaweed salad. I chose the forbidden rice as my base.
This colorful bowl packed so much flavor in every bite. I thought the miso sesame shoyu sauce was well balanced. The lightly marinated eggplant pieces were quite delicious and I almost wanted a full bowl of just the eggplant. The forbidden rice was a little harder than I expected, but I really enjoyed my bowl overall.
The bowl was so flavorful I felt like the kanpachi almost got lost in all of it. I felt like the bowl didn’t really need the fish at all, though the fish itself was high quality and nicely marinated.
Gochujang Salmon
Black garlic gochujang sauce, asparagus, pickled shitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, crispy garlic. Mr. K’s additional five toppings were charred habanero, wasabi peas, chile marinated oranges, crispy garlic, and jicama. He chose bamboo rice as his base.
This bowl was also quite flavorful, especially with the garlicky gochujang sauce. It was also quite spicy, but that was a result of Mr. K’s other toppings. I also liked the bamboo rice, which is infused with bamboo extract, contributing health benefits and a beautiful natural shade of green.
We also picked up some taro chips to snack on later. The taro chips are lightly seasoned with wasabi furikake.
Overall, I enjoyed the food we had at Sweetfin Poke. The bowls are tasty and very flavorful. This may not be for the poke purist though. The food here is a more of an elevated poke inspired experience. We wille definitely be back.
Menu:
Sweetfin Poke
(inside UTC mall)
4301 La Jolla Village Dr suite 2035
San Diego, CA 92122
