Well, it seems like we’ve all been waiting for Poké to Me to open for a while now. Ever since the sign went up people have been asking for an opening date, and after a few false starts…don’t you know that the time has arrived?

I think you all will enjoy it. I mean, there’s so much you can do! You can have lots of fun coming up with your own poké creations by taking it step by step. Oh baby!

Step 1: Choose Your Base

At this place it is all about choice (like Subway or Chipotle’s model) starting with your choice of white rice, brown rice, spring mix salad, or half & half, all served in a clear plastic bowl.

Step 2: Choose Your Protein 

You can pick 3 scoops ($9.75) or 4 scoops ($11.50) of either tuna, spicy tuna, salmon, albacore, crawfish, scallop, or tofu. Everything is in containers right in front of you. The scoops are generous, especially considering you get to choose unlimited sides later on.

Step 3: Choose Your Sauce

You can choose from ponzu, yuzu, garlic ponzu, or mustard soy and the proteins are tossed before being added to the bowl containing your base.

Step 4: Choose Your Sides

You can choose from crabmeat, seaweed salad, sunomono, onion, pineapple, bell pepper, and corn or if you want you can get a bit of everything, and if you want more crabmeat they can give you more for $1.50.

Step 5: Topping Sauce

This is different from the sauce above because it just goes on the top. The choices here are wasabi mayo, spicy mayo, sweet mayo or sweet chile.

Step 6: Additional Toppings

For the final step in the build your own poké bowl process, you can pick masago, green onion, crispy garlic, black sesame seeds, white sesame seeds, nori, or a little of everything.

Honestly, to those new to the build your own poké model, there may be a slight learning curve. I really think its just a matter of time before you figure out what the perfect combination is, but it just means you can keep going back. It can be overwhelming to be faced with all these choices, which is why I was so specific in mentioning everything available.

Bottom line? This place is good. Really good. And not only that, the employees are really nice, the place has plenty of seating, and it brings something new to Santa Clarita. Yes, there are other places serving good poké bowls in town, but there’s something I really like about building my own. I look forward to being a regular (and perfecting my ideal bowl), and I highly recommend it to the seafood lovers out there.

Poké to Me is located at 27530 Newhall Ranch Road (next to Tri Tipps) in Valencia. Please remember, they are brand new! Be patient with wait times, as there is bound to be a rush of people wanting to try it.

Copyrighted photos used by eatSCV with photographer’s permission.