8th and B Poke (National City)

At the end of May last year, I heard about a poke shop opening in National City, but we were between trips and I never made it until September. 8th and B Poke is located; well, off of 8th Street and B Avenue in one of the new residential buildings.

I had heard that the shop will sometimes sell out of poke, so I made sure to go before they opened. As a whole parking can be a bit "interesting" in this area as well.

The shop is small, with a small counter and a listing of the poke available posted on the "board". What can be confusing is that different sizes of poke "bowls/plates" are listed, but it doesn't tell you how much poke is involved with each. 

On the counter is a list of what kind of tako poke and salmon is available that day.

I figured, correctly that a Medium Plate would have two different poke and since it's really hard to find decent tako poke here in San Diego, I got the kimchi tako along with the ahi limu.

  The texture of the ahi was good. Not too much connective tissue. The fish was highly sauced, and the sauce was on the sweet side. There wasn't a huge amount of limu and the sweetness of the sauce pretty much overshadowed any of the briny-oceany flavor provided by the seaweed, though the textural crunch provided much needed contrast. The fish was of decent quality and nicely prepped.

The rice had some shoyu based sauce and furikake on it and was decently cooked on all my visits.

There was surimi and seaweed salad; routine stuff. But for some reason what they called "fish mash", tuna scrape looked really familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it at the time.

The tako was just prepped octopus with sauce squirted on it, not marinated at all, thus without much flavor. It was also overly chewy.

The ahi was not bad at all, better than most other places in San Diego. I downloaded my photos and made a note to return. I must be getting old, because we went on a couple of trips after this visit, and I totally forgot about the place. And then on my last post on Poke Etc, "FOY" Jack mentioned 8th and B! Yikes, I had forgotten about the place. I was off on that Thursday and headed right on down to National City.

Same gameplan; I arrived right before opening and ordered a Medium Plate. I got asked if I'd like to add some Shrimp Tempura ($3) and I acquiesced.

I probably should have passed on the shrimp as I saw it pulled from an air fryer.

This time I got the Spicy Garlic Ahi and the Shoyu Ahi.

   As I walked back to the car, I realized I forgot to ask the folks the burning question about the place I had in mi cabeza. Sigh! Anyway, on this visit, the Spicy Garlic Ahi, wasn't particularly spicy, nor was it garlicky, at least to me. The fish was on the chewy side but decent. As with my previous visit the Ahi was swimming in sauce.

The shoyu Ahi was quite good, not overly sauced, nor excessively sweet, good texture, nice soy overtones, not too salty. Looks like I found a winnah!

As for the shrimp, well, it hadn't held up well on the drive home. The shrimp was fairly small, though who would complain about $3 these days? It was soggy and really lacked seasoning.

And so, I was ready for a post....until "FOY" Mar commented on Friday, just a day after my visit telling me that 8th and B had LauLau on Sundays! Ok...... Of course, I miss having good LauLau, so I waited and visited on a Sunday. And yes, there's a LauLau plate ($19), which comes with one scoop of poke.

I must say that I understand folks' confusion here, there's no indication of how much poke comes with each plate, nor does it say that the LauLau plate comes with poke.....I did ask and was told I had one choice. So far, my favorite had been the Shoyu Ahi so I went with that.

It was interesting to see a line forming, which stretched out the door when I exited. I guess weekends must be pretty busy here!

   This time, I didn't forget that question, you see, that "fish mash" brought me back to a place that won the I love poke festival in OC in 2015. Yes, for a time we thought that Zarlitos had some of the best poke in San Diego. Sadly, they stopped serving poke around late 2018 or so. 

I asked and was told that this was indeed the same folks. Ohh-kay! That fish mash; think of how the old school places used to take bone scraping and make spicy tuna; it's actually quite tender, not fishy, at least what this place makes....in fact, I asked not to have seaweed salad and they gave me an extra scoop of the fish mash.

The fish in the shoyu poke was quite tender on this visit, but was much more "sauced" and sweeter than before. 

As for the Lau Lau, as you can see, the Luau leaf was undercooked and fibrous. The meat was....well, as expected lacking the salted fish and pork fat.

It was so lean, dry, and tasteless. I'll pass on this from now on.

But, that poke is pretty good; it's miles ahead of what I'd recently had at Poke Etc. So, if you enjoyed the poke that Zarlito's used to served, here's the remedy. Of course for me, HFS at Centerpark is still my go-to. But I'll definitely drop by 8th and B again if I'm in the area, if only to see what's going on.

And for even more opinions....because I guess great minds think alike; please check out Denver's and Joy's posts on 8th and B!

And thanks to Jack and Mar for the reminders about 8th & B!

What would I do without our "FOYs"!

8th & B Poke
806 B Ave.
National City, CA 91950
Hours:
Wed - Mon 11am - 7pm
Closed on Tuesdays

Comments

[Peter]

Hmmm -- looks like HFS will also remain my go-to...

[Kirk]

As it should Peter!

[kat]

hit or miss

[Denver]

Great review! Bummer about the Lau Lau. Spot on about the fish and they gotta change the menu board. HFS is still the gold standard and of course I found it through this blog 😜.

Thanks for linking my review. I did the same with yours.

[Joy]

Hi Kirk thanks so much for the link! The place is definitely better than Poke Etc. nearby but if I went in blindfolded I wouldn’t be able to tell one kind of poke from another here given the amount of sauce and how sweet it is. That said, it’s nice to see a business that cares about what they do — everything is always well-prepped — and they already seem to have quite the fan following. I hope they continue to do well!

[Kirk]

Yes it was Kat!

Thanks for the link Denver! And yes, HFS is the current standard for SD....at least for me!

Nice folks here Joy! It's a bit over-sauced for me but still better than the alternatives in the area!

[SD Julie]

Nice review. Is there any place in San Diego where you can get decent Lau Lau?

[Jack]

HFS is still definitely my go-to spot for poke. It's been awhile since I've been to It's Raw Poke in OB though so might have to check them out

[Kirk]

I haven't found good lau lau in San Diego in years Julie! Still trying though.

I was thinking of heading back to It's Raw Jack Great minds...right?

[Mar]

Yeah that lau lau doesn't look right, major bummer! I think Leilani's Attic in Clairemont sells the frozen Keoki's lau lau? I would call and ask though, I haven't been in about six months. Steaming it at home has worked for me when I've had cravings for it.

[Kirk]

I've seen Keoki's at Marukai on occasion as well Mar. In fact, I bought some once when I really needed a fix.