Globetrotting Flavors

At West Coast fast casual Sam Choy’s Poke, musubi gets the comfort-food treatment with the Da Garlic Chicken Musubi, where crispy fried garlic chicken sits atop white rice and nori. This take proves how musubi can easily borrow from America’s fried chicken obsession and reframe it in a portable, craveable snack.

In Miami, Miami Musubi takes a global street food lens, offering a fun array of inventive builds. The Bánh Musubi, packed with “Tiger Tear” aïoli, nuoc cham, cucumber-carrot crunch and basil, is a clever nod to the red-hot Vietnamese banh mi. The same menu also runs a playful Cuban Musubi, layering in crunchy dill pickles, Swiss cheese, mojo aïoli and furikake. Each item showcases musubi’s adaptability, capturing the soul of beloved sandwich builds and translating them into new, bite-sized formats. With the added flexibility of subbing in turkey “Spam” or plant-based “Spam,” Miami Musubi also demonstrates how musubi can meet diverse lifestyle preferences while staying true to its cultural mash-up roots.

Flavors on the Edge is an ongoing series that explores emerging ingredients poised to become high-impact flavor builders.