After Poke Sushi in Crowne Plaza Hotel was closed for good, I have been wanting to visit their other Japanese restaurant which serves grilled stuffs (e.g. yakitori etc) but shame on me, I just could visit the outlet sometime last week. Unlike the Poke Sushi, Poke Grill doesn’t seem to share the popularity like the “brother”, and as much as I know, there is only one outlet in Jakarta so far. Poke Grill is located inside Rukan Permata Senayan, which is loaded with small stores, banks and offices; the outlet directly faces the main street and is just about 3 minutes drive from my home, or even faster by foot, LOL!
Although the location of Poke Grill is quite strategic compared to other units in the building complex, it’s very easy to miss because the signboard is just too small and dark. It gets worse during night time because it is completely dark and lack of lights, unlike Poke Sushi in Dharmawangsa. The place is small, with open kitchen and very few tables. Quite comfortable but the lightings are a little annoying to me.

As the name suggests, the main dishes in this chain is the grilled stuffs or kushiyaki, from chicken, beef, pork, even seafood. Price range for this grilled stuffs are from IDR 12.5K to IDR 90K per portion. If you purchase minimum 2 skewers, you can make it a set meal by adding IDR 35K and you’ll get rice, grilled renkon, seafood soup and ocha (drink). But still, it means that the set meal starts from IDR 60K and up.
Beside all these stuffs, they also serve sushi (only God knows how expensive their sushi is, without the AYCE promotion), and lately, newer menu including donburi (rice bowls). However, the donburi menu is not written in the big menu so we had to ask for the other “hidden” menu from the not-so-friendly staff who served our table. Honestly, we were not too interested about eating kushiyaki that night, but since we were already there, we tried the basic one, yakitori. 
Yakitori IDR 12.5K/skewer
The chicken skewers were quite decent with juicy meat and tasted nice too. The skewers came with 3 different sauces: goma (sesame) sauce, miso sauce, sweet and sour sauce. Our fave that night was the miso sauce and it was seriously finger-licking good! 

Gyutan Don (Beef Tongue Rice Bowl)
First of all, presentation-wise, it’s not even a donburi. The gyutan was covered with oil and although it was quite tasty, I felt like I wasn’t eating Japanese food. What’s with the egg on top of the rice?

Lamb Shoulder Donburi
If I thought the first one was bad, this one was even worse. There was barely any meat on the plate, so much oil, and the lamb smelled bad. My advice is, stick to your kushiyaki and avoid the so-called “rice bowls”, trust me, I just try to save you!

Green Tea Jelly
This was by far, the weirdest, most confusing green tea jelly I have ever eaten in my life. Yes, it had a hint of green tea, but that was it. 

You know, some people say, “If you have nothing good to say, don’t say”, well, in this case, I am writing this review not to badmouth Poke Grill, but I was just too disappointed to shut up. I actually like the place (minus the lightings) and the yakitori was pretty decent too, but the “rice bowls” totally brought me down. The service wasn’t good either, as I assumed the waiter who served us is actually the manager or something. He looked very tired, and the staffs were only him and another guy behind the counter, who practically prepared the food. It was sad because I was always a fan of Poke Sushi (especially the Crowne Plaza Hotel outlet) and I was hoping this could be the replacement.
Well, I guess my search hasn’t ended, then.
*All prices are subject to 5% service charge & 10% government tax
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Poke Grill
Rukan Permata Senayan Blok H-2
Jl. Tentara Pelajar
Patal Senayan
Jakarta Selatan
Ph. +62 21 5794 4277
Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 11.30 – 15.00, 17.00 – 22.00 
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