Inside Urbana’s Broadway Food Hall, Poke Shack recently added banh mi sandwiches, crispy fried chicken wings, and mochi doughnuts to the menu and expanded into the space previously used by Mi Casita Restaurante, which took over La Royale.
The new extended menu items are affordable; all of the new dishes at The Shack are under $10. The banh sandwich has a choice of protein: cold cuts, grilled pork, cha lua, grilled chicken, grilled beef, panko-breaded fried fish, stir fry tofu, and pork sausage. The fried chicken can be sauced with any of the restaurant’s sauces: gochujang, sweet and sour, mango habanero, sweet Thai chili, garlic honey soy, sweet teriyaki, roasted sesame, or red hot Sriracha. The mochi doughnuts come in chocolate, matcha green tea, strawberry, caramel churro, cookies and cream, and black sesame flavors.
Poke Shack will continue to serve tasty poke bowls and Hawaiian food at all three of their locations: Broadway Food Hall, The Fields, and Mahomet, but the new menu items will only be available in Urbana. Since the expanded menu is unique to the food hall location, the restaurant plans to name the extension something else in the future to differentiate the menus. Follow Poke Shack on Facebook for updates on the restaurant’s expansion and photos of the food.
I was at the CUDO Plays event on Saturday (check out Julie’s review of the Grand Exhibition), and seeing the new menu of banh mi menu sandwiches made me want to try one.
I ordered the grilled pork banh mi ($8.75). The sandwich had grilled pork, pickled carrots and daikon, onions, a long slice of cucumber, fresh jalapeño slices, cilantro, and creamy sauce on soft bread, and it tasted pretty good. The sweet cubed pork had a yummy charred barbecue flavor that went well with all the sandwich toppings: the spicy jalapeño, pickled veggies, fresh cilantro, and cool cucumber.
It’s always exciting to see new menus, but I would be remiss not to mention that — in the very same food hall just two stalls down — A Taste of Both Worlds also serves a delicious pork banh mi.
Broadway Food Hall
401 N Broadway Ave
Urbana
M-Sa 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
