There are Starbucks locations all over the place, making it many people’s go-to coffee spot, but the chain wants to be more than that. It’s now angling to become a hot lunch spot, and it’s starting in Chicago with two newly remodeled Starbucks location that feature an expanded Mercato lunch menu. The expanded menu, according to Eater, includes sandwiches, soups, and desserts that, for the most part, are fairly conventional offerings, even for Starbucks. However, there's one thing available at these Chicago locations that we never expected to see sold at a coffee shop. It's a sushi burrito.
The item that stands out the most on this version of the Mercato lunch menu is called the Chicken Maki Roll, and it looks a bit like a hand roll you. Instead of fish, however, this roll comes with slow cooked, shredded chicken and according to the Starbucks press release it's meant to be a "classic California chicken burrito with a twist." The twist, we supposed, is that it contains sushi rice and is wrapped in nori. Inside, it also has salsa, lime crema, cucumber, pickled cabbage, avocado, and crispy onions.
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Though this is certainly the first time we've seen a sushi burrito at Starbucks, it's not the first time we've come across this particular trendy food hybrid. A restaurant in New York called Uma Temakeria started selling sushi burritos back in 2015, and the dish quickly went viral on social media. However, that doesn't make us any less surprised to hear that Starbucks, a place we think of for its Frappuccinos and breakfast sandwiches, is carrying the menu item. We'll have to make our way to the two Chicago locations that are selling the Chicken Maki Roll, and see if it's good enough to have us pairing seaweed with our Pumpkin Spice Lattes.
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produced by Christina Dun.