North Shore Poke Co

Mediocre Poki bowls, I was so excited when they opened this in Cerritos, since this is one of the only shops that offer Poki bowls around here. The bowls are small and bland. I’ve had better Poki pretty much everywhere else. The sauce is what makes the bowl and it was meh. If you want good Poki go to Poki monster or pokinometry.

The first two times I went there it was great, then I went there yesterday and got this super Duper crazy poke bowl with bunch of stuff in it that cost me almost 20 bucks. It was OK. Not as good compared to Cali poke, but the worst thing was that the fried garlic was burnt so the whole time all I taste in my bowl was bitterness. I couldn’t eat it, had a few bites and then ended up throwing it away.

Call it sashimi, call it tuna tartare, or just call it POKE. The assortment of sauces and varieties of sides that you can accompany your meal with are fantastic.
I had my favorite, ahi tuna. With flavor Kalihi kine, one of the spicier of the flavors. For those not inclined toward spice, there are plenty of options with more traditional sauces that are mild to medium in heat level.
What you get is a nice amount of fresh wholesome food that will fill you up. Don’t forget the seaweed salad.
We chose to order online and pick up our order which was ready when we arrived. The staff was pleasant and helpful and we couldn’t wait to tear into our delicacies upon arriving home.
For good quality and a nice clean upbeat atmosphere I would definitely recommend this restaurant.

A must when in cerritos, i drive from LA to this great spot. Quick and friendly service. Food is always fresh, great place to stop by or sit in.

Definitely a go to place when you’re in the area! I visited from New York and I loved it! A must try recommendation would be the Spicy Teri with mango!
Now that I’m back in New York. I’m missing it so much!

The freshest fish, the most tasty sauces! The workers and music are on point! Jeff’s Sweet & Spicy Yuzu is a must!!! My weekly addiction!

It’s a bit pricier with all the add ons but the poke bowl was good! I got the waimea with mixed ahi tuna and salmon, mixed brown rice and cucumbers, and avocado, ginger, and crunchy garlic!

SMALL PORTIONS and EXPENSIVE! It’s your standard delicious Poke, but with new Poke shops opening left and right I’m not sure how long this place with last.
Also, without a Unilocal Check-​In, you don’t receive any free toppings! I love getting fried onion, seaweed, green onions, etc. to top off my poke (which is usually complimentary) but North Shore does not include any of that. Kinda disappointed…

Really Good Poke. Staff is very friendly and will help you figure out what to order. Depending on time, parking can be hard to find.

This was my second time coming here. My boyfriend and I were on the way back to Irvine from LA and wanted some poke so we came here. It’s his favorite poke place. Northshore was the first place I ever had poke, but I had it at the original location. I always get the mix sushi with Waimea sauce, avocado, fried garlic, and mango on top of brown rice. The line is very short here and the food is ready very quickly. It’s a lot faster than their Huntington Beach location, which I love.
If you’ve never tried Northshore, it’s definitely worth a try. A trick I’ve learned (because food gets a little price quite fast) is to buy half a pound of poke and then get rice on the side. You get more fish than if you were to get a bowl and it’s only $ 1 more.
I knocked off a star for drink selection. There are no healthy options aside from water. I usually have my poke with green tea but the only green tea they had was infused with Lychee syrup. I was very disappointed by that, but other than that, it’s a great place for poke.

3.5~ Pretty solid poke that makes a refreshing lunch or light meal! Amidst this plaza of Asian cuisine is a good, healthy alternative (although I guess Hawaiian is still somewhat Asian). This place is more of a food stand, with a small kitchen and a few tables that make it feel like you are indoors but also in a shack in Hawaii.
I got a small ahi tuna with ginger shoyu and avocado (as a free topping with Unilocal check-​in). It came in a small plastic box but still had nice presentation, the tuna was of normal color and there was a generous portion of avocado. It was also heavily sprinkled with sesame seeds, which I really like as it adds a slight crunch and a nice flavor to balance the salt from the soy sauce. The fish was good quality, and the sauce was good — I just wish there was a little more ginger flavor or that the ginger did not count as an extra topping. The other bowls were also apparently good and the tacos were a good value.
For a non custom pre-​set bowl, this place is pretty good for a fast stop, but in the end I’d prefer a custom bowl and would rather spend the extra time for ingredients of my choosing.

I thought this place would be super packed but I guess everyone in that plaza goes to Gen. I was so disappointed because they didnt have avocado! It was out of season nonetheless but still. I just ordered a small bowl with salmon and that orange spicy sauce. It was good but at other poke places, the bowl comes with other fixings but here you have to pay for them. I tried the nachos as well and what is nice is that the chips are hella crispy and fried but its so much more work… id stick with the bowl unless you want to insta those nachos cuz I havent seen it before like that.

Small but does its job, most people take it to go it seems.
The fish seemed fresh and not veiny. The sauces can be more flavorful but you can’t win them all. They didn’t charge for extra rice for my son, so that was really nice.

13 bucks for a big bowl of raw salmon and tuna cubes with avocado over rice; what a bang for the buck! They seriously didnt cheap out on the ingredients and gave me more sashimi and avocado than the amounts that I usually could handle! How generous!

Check in on Unilocal for a free extra (avacado, crispy garlic, Mac nut etc).
Tl;dr
–no variety in protein (only salmon or tuna)
–rice is warm
–nice service/​workers though
After seeing the reviews and ratings, my BF and I wanted to come eat here for dinner. There’s a menu on the wall when you come inside to see what different options you would like… Speaking of options, there’s not much… For protein, you either get salmon, ahi tuna or veggies… Aaaaand that’s it! For your base, you have white/​brown rice, cucumbers. However, you do get a variety of sauces to choose. They don’t have crab meat, seaweed etc either.
I ordered salmon w/​white rice (rice came out WARM… Meh) and for my free extra I chose «crispy garlic» (which you can barely tell w/​the small amount they give, granted when I asked them about it they offered to put a bit more).
If I were to give my rating solely based on the salmon, I’d give it a 4 but w/​warm rice and no variety in protein, I kicked it down to a 3. This place isn’t bad but it’s not good/​worth the price.

I’ve been in search of some good poke in California ever since I tried it in Hawaii. Although Northshore’s quality is good, I still prefer going to Pokinometry for their more customizable bowls at fixed rates. You can build onto your selections here too, at an extra dollar per add-​on.
Sunset: The texture and flavor were good and didn’t overpower the salmon and tuna.
Service: The girl working as cashier when I went was great and patient with my friends and I as we struggled to navigate through the menu options. HOWEVER, I wasn’t so pleased by the guy making the bowls. I had ordered an add-​on of masago, but didn’t see it so I asked kindly him if he had included it. When he said he had, out of instinct I obviously had to glance back at my bowl to see where it was and his defensive and RUDE response was: «TRUST, it’s in there». I’m accustomed to seeing the masago placed on top, so I didn’t realize he had mixed it in. Keep in mind, not all customers are trying to milk extra freebies or yell at you, so please try to fake a little more patience before exuding that attitude.

I’ve heard great things about North Shore Poke Co, so I was pretty excited to check it out one night. The place has a good amount of seating for just a poke place. Lets get right into it with the food.
/​/​FOOD /​/​
Waimea (spicy mayo) bowl with half tuna and half salmon with cucumber as the base. I thought the flavor of the spicy mayo was really good. It wasn’t too spicy at all, but you can get some flavor as well as taste the fish.
Kalihi Kine (spicy chili shoyu) with half tuna and half salmon with brown rice as the base. The spicy chili had a real good kick to it. To be honest, I would have loved this sauce to be mixed with the spicy mayo. It would have been the perfect combo!
Overall, I thought the flavors and the quality of the fish were really good, but I’m only giving them 3 stars since the price is too high and the amount of poke is too low. I prefer going to Jus Poke in Redondo Beach. It’s closer for me, but you also get a lot more food and poke for the price.

I came to North Shore Poke Co with high expectations and a very hungry stomach. Unfortunately, I left still feeling pretty hungry and with extremely lowered expectations. This has been my worst poke experience I’ve ever had.
This current location is located in a pretty crowded plaza right next to 85 Degrees. Parking is a pain if you come during the weekend. The restaurant itself is quite small, with only a few tables in the middle and a bar type eating area that lines the window. You order at the front, pay, and they’ll call out your order when it’s ready.
North Shore Poke is different from the other DIY poke bowls in that they have a pretty limited menu. Only two types of fish — ahi tuna and salmon — are offered. You customize it by choosing the size, flavor (type of sauce mixed in), fish, base (white, brown, or mixed rice), and any extras you want added in (each extra is $ 1). Altogether a pretty simple and pricey poke bowl. My friend recommended ordering the poke by the pound. Instead of having the fish mixed in with the bowl, they give you a tub of sashimi by itself at the market price. You’re still able to add the sauces and any other extras to the fish, but you’ll have to order rice on the side. According to my friend, she said you get a lot more fish as that’s the star of the whole poke experience anyway.
I went with the sashimi by the pound, and ordered 1 pound to split amongst the two of us. For both salmon and tuna mixed together, the total for that day was a little under $ 20. I decided to try the V Land — the house Ponzu sauce since I really like more sour sauces with fish. Unfortunately that was the biggest mistake that night — the sauce had no flavor and did nothing to add to the fish. Instead, it made it taste even fishier, if that makes sense. I guess their Ponzu sauce isn’t too great. We also had rice on the side, but the rice we got was incredibly hard — not sushi rice at all. And the fish was not cut into small chunks. They were understaffed that day, but we got our fish still connected to each other in huge chunks. The fish was chewy and unappetizing, not what you’d expect when you eat poke.
And to make matters worse, I went to ask for more sauce but the worker gave me a difference sauce altogether. I guess I should have checked before I dumped it into the sashimi, but Pipeline and V Land DO NOT mix well. It made everything taste horrible. The best thing of the night was definitely the free $ 1 extra I got from checking in to Unilocal.
tl;dr — Unappetizing sashimi, hard rice, tasteless food. Unfortunately I left dinner still feeling hungry and had to go next door to buy some bread to satisfy the hunger. Don’t think I’ll be back. Ever.

AHHHHH YES. We can finally get poke somewhere inland and closer to civilization. I have nothing but love for our rich friends in HB and along the coast, but traffic and metered parking along the beach wasn’t worth the trip for only poke sometimes.
I love the north shore in HB, and this one lives up to its name as well. It’s the same set up — pick a size, flavor, rice/​noodles, and extras. I always get a little too excited and get the large size, but it is actually A LOT and pretty filling.
As for flavors, I’m all about the Sunset and Spicy-​Teri. I know, pretty poke-​basic of me. And of course, you have to get the extra AVOCADO.
Life is a little more complete.

[Time & Date of visit]: Saturday Afternoon
[Party Size]: 2
[Location/​Ambiance]:
Parking — I think finding a spot in the front is hectic, just due to this plaza being mainly restaurants and cafes. Skip to the back lot and take a short walk if you don’t have the patience to some parking space stalking.
Inside — It’s a quaint setup. The menu is largely printed on the right wall as soon as you come in. Self Seating. In the middle are small 2 top tables with backless benches. With one long running bench and table against the windows. Seats are pretty cramped and spaced too near each other. Not really made for large groups.
Ambiance — Casual
It was pretty busy when we arrived, but most patrons appear to be just ordering to go.
[Service]:
Fast setup — Order, prepay and then pick up at the counter. Beverages are self refill. Tables are self bus.
The cashier was very friendly and had a smile through out explaining on how to order. As well as explaining their best selling items and what combinations work better. She was also straight up on how spicy the sauces are.
Time of order to when the food was done was pretty quick, felt like less than 5 mins. They also didn’t say anything as we brought outside drinks, plastic coconut water bottles.
[Food Highlights]:
Large bowl Waimea mixed (ahi tuna & salmon) on white rice, topped with avocado: Whew, that’s lengthy wording for one order. I’m not the most sashimi minded expert. But the small and medium cuts of tuna and salmon were pretty fresh. As well as the avocado. The creamy, mildly spicy waimea sauce blends in well with the toppings that are already included with the cuts of fish, with out overpowering each too much I think. Sesame seeds give a crunchy contrasting texture. Though the white rice tasted a little over cooked. For breaking my poke virgin experience, this tasted pretty good.
[Total Bill w/​Tip & Tax]:
$ 10 and some change w/​o a drink. Including the free topping for checking in on Unilocal.
{Summary}:
Ordering setup, feels like a Moe’s for southerners, or Baja Fresh for the Cali folk. Prior to my trip, I asked other Unilocalers where to try Poke as this is one of the new trends popping up. Thrillist also recommended this a must try. I would have to agree, unless you despise sashimi or raw foods in general.