Poke & Role Restaurant Coming to Printer's Row

A reader sends us an email and this picture:

Poke & Roll in old Porkchop space! VERY exciting for printers row!!!

This looks promising.  This restaurant will take over the recently vacated Porkchop (555 S. Dearborn).

The Poke bowl trend is pretty hot right now and hopefully this new spot lives up to the hype.  We've written about Asian Outposts Poke Bowls, but outside of that, we aren't aware of any other places serving the dish (although we imagine there are quite a few in Chinatown).

If you're not familiar we have a link from Thrillist San Francisco providing details on the trend:

Poke (pronounced “POH-keh”) is a classic Hawaiian appetizer that features sliced and marinated raw fish, served with a wide variety of accompaniments.

Yes, that is possibly the vaguest definition ever, but considering “poke” is just a Hawaiian word meaning “to section, slice, or cut,” it makes sense that there are so many variations (you can get octopus, clam, or salmon poke). Still, if you’re eating this traditional raw-fish salad in Hawaii, you’ll most commonly find it made with yellowfin or bigeye tuna that’s been marinated in soy and sesame.

Poke is popular in Hawaii -- like, so popular that people refer to it as Hawaii’s hamburger. But the origin of poke actually dates back to the arrival of the first Hawaiians on the island chain, who cut up whatever fresh fish they caught that day and mixed it with salt and seaweed collected from the ocean. Although the dish has been around a very long time, the name “poke” didn’t become ubiquitous until the 1960s, and it wasn’t until the ‘70s that recipes for poke started appearing in cookbooks.

While we couldn't find a website for Poke & Roll, one would expect it to also sell Sushi Rolls.

Between this and the new Hax/Gordo's concept Printer's Row appears to have some solid new options.

(Hat tip:  JH!)