I definitely did not feel like one of the cool kids when I walked into Poke Bar Dice and Mix on Lonsdale Avenue and the staffer behind the counter asked me what I would like to eat.
I was flanked by seemingly endless ingredients, menu boards, serving suggestions and a staggering number of combinations in which to consume the restaurant’s focus, the eponymous poke (pronounced sort of like poh-kay). I had no idea how to respond to her save to say, well, that I had no idea how to respond to her.
Poke (in contemporary fast casual iterations spelled with an acute accent over the ‘e’) has blown up in the last five years or so but is something I have largely sidestepped in the mistaken belief that it was just a trendy riff on fish tartare or chirashi-don, one of my favourite Japanese meals comprised of choice cuts of sashimi served over a bed of rice. I had sampled the odd morsel of poke in casual chain venues around town and was not blown away.
North Vancouver’s newest seafood offering demonstrated to me that poke is, in fact, very much its own thing.
The dish draws from Hawaiian traditions and marries other international influences such as Japanese, Peruvian and Mexican to arrive at the product that has popped up in countless dedicated venues all over North America.
Necessity is the mother of invention and poke is an example of a product that hailed from a simple insight, namely, that once the prime cuts have been removed from a fish, there remain a host of bi-cuts that have little commercial value but are nevertheless tasty and consumable.
The story goes that poke is born of Hawaiian fishermen dressing up the scraps of their catch for a protein-rich snack. The practice evolved beyond just pragmatism to become a popular consumer dish in Hawaii and, particularly in the last half decade or so, social media commentators and influential restaurant reviewers have cited poke as one of the most exciting dishes to hit the culinary landscape in decades.
In 2014, an online review site that I refuse to name in this column voted a tiny shack of a restaurant in Hawaii the best restaurant in the U.S.; the place only serves poke.
Today’s versions of poke likely bear little resemblance to their hungry fishermen-inspired progenitor and now typically contain many, many ingredients beyond raw cubes of lean fish.
After acclimatizing myself to the Poke Bar environment, I deduced there are two approaches to ordering there. You can take the simple route and order from a menu of pre-set recipes or, as I did and would likely do again, you can build your own poke bowl by starting with your preferred raw fish (I chose bright red squares of ahi tuna, wild sockeye salmon for an addition $1.50 supplement, and scallops in mayo) and then working outwards with an ever-expanding set of sauces, toppings and garnishes.
The pre-set menu includes options like The O.G. Tuna made with ahi, sweet onion, green onion, shoyu (soy sauce with wheat), masago (fish roe), house dressing, sesame oil and furikake (a salty Japanese garnish of seawood, toasted sesame and dried fish), or a Spicy Tuna combination that includes togarashi (chilli powder blend) and spicy mayo.
I chose white rice on which to put my trio of seafood (brown rice and nacho chips are other options, though the latter was not available on my visit).
From there my fish was drizzled with sesame oil and spicy mayo. On top of that was added corn, cilantro, spring onion, avocado (for a $1 supplemental charge), cucumber salad, seaweed salad, and ginger.
After that, the staffer and I proceeded to the garnish section where I chose fried jalapenos, fried onion, and chilli flakes. We topped the whole thing off with a bit of ponzu (traditional Japanese, citrus-based dipping sauce or garnish).
The entire complex blend of ingredients was mixed thoroughly by hand and then put on the rice and off I went home, weighty poke in hand, to enjoy my novel dinner.
Poke has traditionally been an appetizer dish, but Poke Bar’s selections are definitely meal-sized.
I happened to have some good quality corn chips from Cilantro and Jalapeno at home and so my first comment about my poke blend was that I preferred it on chips to on rice; there is a nice (and for me, almost necessary) textural counterbalance between the crunchy chips and the soft, creamy poke.
Next, I would suggest that the dish is greatly enhanced by a blast of spiciness; the fried jalapenos and spicy mayo lifted the dish in a significant way and added a welcome layer of complexity.
The fish at Poke Bar is exceedingly fresh and I strongly favoured the ahi and scallop over the salmon, but then I have to confess that salmon sashimi has never been my favourite anyway.
Sesame oil is a standard ingredient in poke recipes and I would recommend including it as it gave the dish a great toasty, fragrant lift. The avocado was a nice addition but not essential, from my perspective; its inclusion alongside the spicy mayo gave the poke a flavour not unlike a dynamite roll from the world of sushi.
It was $18 for my meal.
Poke Bar Dice and Mix is part of an international chain. The North Vancouver location is at 1448 Lonsdale Ave. 604-553-7740. ilovepokebar.com
