Campus

[Food police] New Year’s resolutions

Every week a Delta editor tests the food on campus. From the Aula to X and everything in between. Hungry yet critical, we critique the meals.

This week the food police checked out Poké Labs at Pulse. (Photos: Marjolein van der Veldt)

By Connie van Uffelen & Marjolein van der Veldt

Poké Labs has way more to offer than just pokébowls.

Restaurant: Poké Labs
Day: Thursday, 10 January 2019
Time: 11:45
Meals: medium bowl with salmon, edamame, tofu, lettuce, cucumber and soy-sesame dressing (pescatarian) and a medium bowl with avocado, edamame, tofu, lettuce, mango and spicy dressing (vegan).

Delta too started the new year with plenty of good resolutions. One editor is doing #dryjanuary, the other is going to the gym every day. Fortunately, the Food Police are continuing to eat. This time it was a healthy option at Poké Labs.

You can find Poké Labs near the main entrance at Pulse.
Temperature

Pesca (-)
Cold dish = thermometer stays in the bag.
Vegan (9)
For a cold dish, we don’t really need the thermometer … but wait! The rice is warm so our friend is brought out of the bag. The walk from Pulse to the Library is so long that we calculate a margin. Nevertheless, the dish scores well at a good 55 degrees despite the chilly weather. We’re impressed!

The vegan pokébowl with creamy avocado.
Texture

Pesca (7-)
The salmon is juicy and is cut into not too big and not too small pieces. The tofu is light though sometimes slightly soggy with the large squirt of soy-sesame dressing.
Vegan (8)
Mmm, that creamy avocado. Heavenly! The edamame is crunchy and, apart from one droopy leaf, the lettuce is fine. But the tofu is terrible. And yes, we do know what tofu should be like. The spongy texture of this tofu that we are grinding between our teeth is not up to par. Luckily the juicy mango makes up for it.

The pesca bowl with ‘fresh farm’ tasting soy beans and cucumber.
Taste

Pesca (7-)
The salmon tasted good with the soy-sesame dressing. Unfortunately, some lettuce leaves drowned in the dressing. The soy beans and cucumber tasted farm fresh.

Vegan (8)
Given the sweet mango, we went for the spicy dressing – an excellent decision! The flavour could not be better and it goes extremely well with the avocado, tofu and rice. The mixed lettuce leaves went less well though.

At Poké Labs you can choose a small, medium or large bowl.
Quantity/proportion

Pesca (7)
For a medium poké bowl, we thought we had a good amount. Fine. The proportions were good, but it could have done with a little less dressing. A tiny bit less.
Vegan (8)
A good choice to go for the medium size. Healthy enough to meet our January resolutions and enough to well fill our stomachs.

You cross the desired ingredients on a form.
Price/quality

Pesca (7)
Salmon is not cheap. For the amount that you get in a medium portion, the price is right.
Vegan (5)
We found EUR 7.95 for a bowl of white rice and vegetables a bit steep. In comparison, avocado is much cheaper than salmon or prawns, which were also options at the same price. We decided to test our criticism and went shopping online at Albert Heijn. For all the ingredients (400 grams rice, 150 grams mixed lettuce leaves, 155 gram edamame, 375 gram tofu, 1 avocado and 1 mango) without dressing we paid EUR 7.88 – poké bowls for days! With the dressing we came out at EUR 9.10. We could feed the entire editorial team on this shopping. It may not be a fair comparison, but we just want to show that poké bowls are not cheap.

 

Not so photogenic…
Presentation

Pesca (7)
The dish looked just as poké bowls should look. All the ingredients are stacked in a pretty dish with the mouth-watering salmon on top.
Vegan (6)
Without the dressing, the poké bowl looks very sexy. We immediately become #influencers and #fitgirls. However, with the dressing the bowl looks more like a healthy kapsalon of doner and fries.
 Because we had a takeaway and the lid of the container pressed down on the dish, by the time we opened it, it was not photogenic anymore.

Experience 7
We were served quickly, but found the principle hard. It may just be us as we’re not spring chickens anymore. The to go principle whereby you simply click a lid on your bowl is convenient. Another plus point is the spork the spoon and fork in one. Cormet, are you reading this?

Overall rating
Salmon: 7
Vegan bowl: 7+

 

News editor Marjolein van der Veldt

Do you have a question or comment about this article?

m.vanderveldt@tudelft.nl

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