Fast fish: What to expect at South Asheville's new sushi burrito, poke restaurant

Mackensy Lunsford | The Citizen-Times

Show Caption Hide Caption What is a sushi burrito? Food writer Mackensy Lunsford learns about the sushi burrito from the new Yum Sushi Burrito and Poke.

Call it fast-casual poke. Call it a sort of Chipotle, but with Hawaiian and Japanese influences, with a nod to mainland-America tastes.

Yum Sushi Burrito and Poke is now open in Arden, nearly adjacent to Craft Centric Taproom and Bottle Shop, on the growing Long Shoals Road corridor.

But before I get into exactly what to expect with this new eatery, let me explain a few things.

Poke — say "po-kay" — is a traditional Hawaiian dish, a sort of salad most often made with raw fish and infused with traditional Japanese flavors. Think toasted sesame, scallion, a flash of bright acidity, and an umami punch, most often from soy sauce.

A sushi burrito is a relatively new phenomenon, an answer to the American craving for Japanese food. But it's also a nod to the American tradition of liking everything to be, well, kind of big — and maybe sometimes also drizzled in mayonnaise.

And it's not the type of burrito that might immediately come to mind. Instead of wrapping proteins, grains and vegetables in a tortilla, this takes sushi fillings, both traditional and otherwise, and wraps them in a sheet of nori.

Simply put, this is one big, overstuffed sushi roll.

The owner of this Arden eatery, Aaron Cheng, is a sushi chef with experience feeding an American palate, as well as catering to food trends.

And poke, with its protein-heavy, low-carb nutritional profile is, as they say, trending.

"Poke originally started in Hawaii, and then it got really popular in the California area as an entree," he said. "It's become popular in New York, and in all kinds of big cities."

It was only a matter of time before it arrived here in Asheville, a city with a healthy-lifestyle focus.

"Everyone's trying to eat healthy and that's what we want to be too — healthy and fast," Cheng said. "As you can see, fast food is everywhere, but there's not that much healthy fast food."

This fits the bill. It's certainly fast.

I asked Cheng to make me a poke bowl over lettuce, and his sushi-trained hands sprang quickly into action. From ask to ready-to-eat was less than a minute, but your mileage will most likely vary. For one, I was the only person in the unopened shop.

At any rate, it works like this: Choose a burrito, poke bowl over rice, or poke over crisp salad greens.

Then pick your protein. You can have raw salmon and tuna, spicy or not. You may also choose scallop, shrimp tempura, plainly cooked shrimp, grilled chicken or organic tofu cubes.

You may then mix in any of two dozen vegetables and cooked proteins, including diced mango, cucumber, carrots, kale and eda mame. I topped a raw-salmon poke salad with jalapenos, spicy crab salad, purple cabbage, cilantro and seaweed salad.

Dressings tend somewhat on the sweet side, and include unagi sauce, sweet shoyu and sweet gochujang. I chose the ginger dressing, which went perfectly with my spicy ingredients.

And even after all that deciding, you still get to pick extra toppings, including sesame seeds, onion crisps and shredded nori. It's sure to hang up many an indecisive eater, and I foresee some bottlenecks forming for just that reason.

The verdict? It's fresh and affordable, with signature bowls and burritos from $8.95-12.95, and sides like seaweed salad, spring rolls and ahi fries at $3-6.

And even if you're not used to the format of a sushi burrito or poke bowl, the flavors should be comfortably familiar for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with an American-style sushi menu.

And that's by design. Essentially what Cheng has created is a larger-format, sometimes deconstructed, make-your-own sushi menu, but with prices similar to what you might expect from a single signature roll in any local Japanese restaurant.

"Instead of a sushi roll cut into pieces, we just give you a big one and you can grab it and eat it," Cheng explained.

Works for me.

Yum Sushi Burrito and Poke is at 100 Julian Shoals Drive in Arden. More here.