About once a week, I get take out at our favorite downtown restaurant. Fortunately for us, our downtown food scene is growing up, and one of the offerings is Poke Bowl (pronounced po-kay), one half of a two-restaurant-one-location venture in downtown Fargo, N.D.
Poke Bowl offers up Hawaiian style poke bowls, meals you essentially build from scratch. So, you get the base choice of white rice or salad, your choice from three sauces (ginger, poke sauce and spicy mayo), your choice from several meats (or tofu) and then a variety of fixings. What you end up with is something that looks like the headline photo above. (Coincidentally, my recommendation is: Go with the rice base, a double order of the kimchi scallops, a combination of poke sauce and spicy mayo, and load the sucker ... I mean all of the toppings. Hmm-mm! Delicious! ... You'll thank me!)
We love Poke Bowl not only for its convenience located to our work downtown but also because for the most part, all of the ingredients are healthy. Admittedly, I could do to switch things up to a half rice, half salad base to make mine a little healthier, but you get the picture.
And for around $13-$15 with a drink, it's not a bad deal for lunch.
But a couple of weeks, our favorite restaurant done us wrong, and I'm not sure I can get over it. It's likely going to sound ridiculous to many, but hear me out.
I was in to order my usual (described above, and which the proprietor just begins to make when I walk in the door), but as I neared the ordering line, I started to see others before me walk out of the store with clear plastic takeout containers containing their poke bowls. One after the other, each was picking up their meals, paying and heading out. Not unusual, of course for a place that basically serves only takeout. But it was the plastic bowl and lid combination that caught my eye.
Previously, since Poke Bowl opened in 2018, they had always used a wax-coated cardboard container with a plastic wrap covering if you were taking it out of the store, as most do. You could complete this with optional wooden chopsticks and paper napkins. And so what I loved about that was that even though I was getting food to go, most of the container contents were recyclable or would fairly quick biodegrade. Paper and wood. Setting aside the small strip of plastic wrap used to cover the top of the bowl, which I would just go without, it was all pretty sustainable materials.
But for some reason in recent weeks, Poke Bowl has gone to an all-plastic carryout option. ... The first day I noticed it, I was taken aback. And while I realize that may seem overly dramatic to some of you, Shelley and I try to live as sustainably as possible. Granted, we could still make a lot of improvements, and we don't shun others for not choosing to do the same, but for us, it is a theological as well as ecological decision. If we were given the awesome responsibility of being stewards of the earthly kingdom, then we believe we ought to live the part as much as possible. In addition to the fact that we have four children, whom we assume will have children at some point, and we'd like to leave something of the divinely awesome world we were given for their generation too.
When I got back to the office that day after picking up my order, I texted Shelley to tell her about the plastic containers, and she had an equally deflated response: "Oh no." ... "Oh yes." I texted back with a frown.
While I was at the shop, waiting in line, I saw one of the former Poke Bowls sitting on a counter behind the serving station. So I secretly hoped that maybe the restaurant had run out of their signature branded Poke Bowl serving containers. You know, maybe there was a factory back-up thanks to the COVID pandemic. ... It was entirely plausible given all of the strange things that seem to be in short supply.
But I went back to Poke Bowl a couple of days ago, and sadly I received an all-plastic carryout container again. ... It made me sad. ... Sad enough to write a blog post about it.
And now I wonder about future visits. It still is entirely possible that they are waiting for more of their branded cardboard containers to come in. I haven't asked the owners, but I think I might. Because as silly as it sounds to some, it may change my lunch routine if I can't get a non-plastic container at Poke Bowl. I really do love their food, but I'm at a point in my life where I want to do everything I can to leave the earth in a condition that is livable for my grandchildren.
And if that means giving up a favorite lunchtime destination to find a place that serves food in anything that is not plastic, I'm willing to do that. It's a small inconvenience, and I feel that it's called for to stay within our ideals for how we want to live.
Oh, I'm not saying we'd likely completely abandon eating at Poke Bowl, but if the continue to serve in the plastic containers, it will likely limit how often I eat there. And that would make me sad. ... I like the hardworking owners, a husband and wife pair who share the restaurant duties from the time they open until they close at 7 p.m. ... I don't want to abandon them, but I want to be able to live with my own decisions as well.
I know someone reading this is already thinking: Oh, how ridiculous. ... And that is OK. You do you, and I'll do me. And for me, caring about small, individual ecological choices each day matters. ... And I was so sad to see my favorite restaurant go the all plastic route.
Maybe, oh maybe, it's just a supply chain issue! ... Could I be so lucky? ... And would it be wrong of me to pray for such an explanations? ... Asking for a friend! ;-)
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