PISCES POKE & RAMEN
ADDRESS: 5587 Huntington Drive N, Los Angeles, CA 90032
WEBSITE: https://www.piscespoke.com/
I didn’t start getting into poke until becoming more exposed to it while out on my business trips to LA. Since then, I’ve definitely developed an affinity for it, and do crave it from time to time. My go-to spot is Poke Salad Bar down in Pasadena, courtesy of my friends Nate and Ruby, who introduced me to it. It was my other friend Michele, however, who mentioned about another spot in the Pasadena area called Pisces Poke & Ramen, who were really well-rated on Yelp. So one night, she and I took the opportunity to go check the place out.
The restaurant itself is located in a small strip mall, which also housed some other restaurants, a hair salon, and a vape shop. We stopped by the place at around 7:00PM on a Saturday night, and it was relatively quiet for the most part. I think that the place was more popular for to-go orders than dine-in, since we were the only patrons there for a little while until another two friends came in and sat at another table.
From a selection standpoint, you can get á la carte items of poke plates, hand rolls, musubis, and other small plates, along with ramen. But the other option is that you can get the Pisces Combo plate, which contains a portion of poke, an appetizer option, a hand roll, and a drink, all for $32. Initially, that might sound rather steep, but if you put together the á la carte prices of what you were getting, it’s actually really good. I decided to take the plunge with the combo plate and ordered the Hawaiian Poke, a Scrambled Egg & Avocado Musubi, and the Spicy Blue Crab & Shrimp Handroll.
For all of their different poke options, it looks like those portions are made-to-order, instead of them already coming pre-mixed and scooping it onto your plate. When I tried the Hawaiian before I ordered it, it definitely had a subtle sweetness to it, which was contrasted by the sharpness of the raw white onions mixed in as well. Since it seemed like we were one of the few orders that they were working on, it didn’t take them very long to put together our combo plates and bring them out to us.
Presentation-wise, it definitely has that bento box feel to it, with all of the different components divided up within the box container. In addition to the poke, handroll, and musubi, the combo plate also contained a portion of their purple rice, some edamame, along with a half-and-half portion of the cucumber and seaweed salad. For $32, it was definitely jam-packed with a lot of food for sure.
I decided to start off with the main attraction: the poke. I did appreciate the fact that any sauce they used really helped to complement the flavors of the salmon and tuna. It didn’t overpower anything and really helped the fish be the star of the dish. The raw onions, nori, along with small chunks of citrus helped to provide additional layers of flavors to each bite as well as to make it enjoyable to eat.
Next up was the handroll, containing butter blue crab and shrimp, with an added spicy element. It was wrapped in soy paper, so it definitely took a bit of extra effort at times to make sure the entire wrapper was torn off with each bite. I definitely got the butter flavor, but I felt that the blue crab may have gotten masked too much. The shrimp was more pronounced of the two seafood items within the handroll, but I’m not sure if it made enough of an impression for me to want it again.
As for the rest of the items, the cucumber and seaweed salads were both refreshing cleanses to the palate while eating everything else, and had good flavor on their own. The kitchen had forgotten to add avocado to my musubi, so they were nice enough to correct that and make another order. It definitely would have been a great breakfast combo, with the avocado, egg, Spam, and rice matching up together really well for a solid musubi. The crunchy onions on top helped to provide a bit of a texture contrast as well.
Since I’ve typically had the build-your-own poke bowl whenever I’ve gone for poke, the style at Pisces was a bit of a departure for me. I can certainly appreciate the quality of the ingredients as well as the different flavor profiles between all of the different items within the combo plate, but I don’t think that it was enough for me to unseat Poke Salad Bar as my go-to poke spot. But if you’re looking for a change-up to where the poke will stand alone and everything else becomes more of the supporting cast, then Pisces might be what you’re looking for.
Let’s now take a look at the Pisces Poke & Ramen Dish Spotlight. Asterisks (*) below mark my recommended dishes.
** Hawaiian Poke **
Choice of salmon, tuna, or mixture of both, tossed with onions, spinach, citrus, seaweed (wakame), and sauces.
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Spicy Blue Crab and Shrimp Handroll
Butter blue crab and shrimp, tossed with spicy mayo, wrapped in soy paper.
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** Scrambled Egg & Avocado Musubi **
Spam musubi with purple rice, scrambled egg, and avocado, topped with crispy onions.
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And finally, here are my rankings for Pisces Poke & Ramen:
Food: 4.5 / 5
There’s quite a few options to choose from on the menu, and they are definitely better known for their poke than their ramen. The quality of the food that we got was a credit to the freshness of the ingredients that comprised of all the combo plate items.
Atmosphere: 4 / 5
The seating situation was pretty straightforward: a bunch of picnic benches put inside the dining area. Not to mention the neon “I LIKE IT RAW” sign that gave off the orange hue to the general area.
Service: 4.25 / 5
The kitchen was able to get our food out relatively quickly, even with some of the items made-to-order. The guy working up at the counter was also friendly to help answer some questions that we had on the menu, along with giving us samples of the different poke options so we could help decide which one to go with.
Price: 4.5 / 5
Even with a pretty high price of $32 for the combo plate option, it ends up giving you a pretty good amount of food, along with a variety of flavor profiles as well. Given the quality of the ingredients, it was something I’d be open to paying again.
Overall:
17.25 / 20
(86%)
Categories: California, Restaurants
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