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| - Let me preface by saying I've been to Hawaii several times. It's one of my favorite vacation spots. And every time I go, no matter which island, I want to have some poke at least once (usually more than that). Poke is everywhere there. You can get it in the grocery store deli case, there are little restaurants that serve it, etc. Great stuff.
So I was excited to see a poke place locally at 4.5 stars! We had the opportunity this afternoon since we were in the area, and so we stopped-in. I'll cut to the chase and say I was disappointed.
First the positives.
The staff was very friendly and helpful. The sashimi appeared to be fresh (given that we're about 400 miles from the nearest ocean), as did the other ingredients. You have a few different ways you can get your sashimi (on rice, greens, and with various other add-ons like cucumber and roe, etc). And they had other options besides the sashimi.
Now the negatives.
They offer the poke in a rice-bowl format though you do have the option for "greens". So they put the cold sashimi on hot rice. This makes warm sashimi. I've never been anyplace that served warm sashimi, from Asia to here. No one. And I understand why now, because it seems to trigger something in your taste saying "this isn't right". Warm raw fish could be hazardous to your health, and I think the brain instinctively knows that. Now I have no doubt this was flown-in fresh and kept refrigerated right up until they put it on my hot rice. I'm sure it's safe. My brain knows this. But the taste buds are saying "huh?!". My wife had it on greens, and did not experience this. So if you like greens you should probably get the sashimi on the greens ONLY.
Next, notice how I'm calling it "sashimi". Because that's what it was. It was NOT poke. Go anywhere in Hawaii and ask for poke, and you get chunks of tuna (usually) that have been marinated in sauce with sesame seeds and julienned onions and maybe some other stuff (seaweed, etc). Marinated!! I would guess for a few hours at the minimum. The sashimi here was not marinated. They put the sauce on 60 seconds before they give it to you. It does not penetrate the fish at all. It doesn't infuse at all. In fact, it mostly goes down and wets your rice with the sauce (and flavor). The tuna sits on top with almost none of the flavor. (Also note that their house sauce is what the poke sauce is supposed to be; I've never had poke before that used the other sauces they offer, and I know this because they were nice enough to let me taste them first...only the house sauce is correct). If you're thinking "well just get some rice in the bite with the tuna", then here's the problem: the rice soaks up the sauce pretty efficiently. So the flavor is actually too strong that way and you miss-out on the flavor of the fish.. If you get yours on greens you won't have the soaking-up problem, but the fish is still on top and not pulling much flavor from the sauce which falls to the bottom, so all you taste is fish (and greens). This is what my wife described to me from her fish, though she did like the other "stuff" (she got the cucumber and pineapple and other things, and had basically made it a salad with sashimi in it).
In Hawaii the only flavor from the sauce that you get is that which has soaked into the fish and wet the outside of it during the marination. It's not a lot, but it's enough to give it a wonderful delicate flavor that does not overpower. It is not served on rice there, it's just served straight-up. So you don't get either the heating I mentioned nor the no-sauce fish, nor the extra strong sauce flavor from the soaked rice. I'm not sure why they do it differently here, but I don't think it works for all the reasons I just explained.
They are a bit expensive. Really $$ if you get the large poke (the small isn't really much fish). But I expected that since you can't get fresh raw fish in the desert without flying it in.
I did not try their other offerings, but I won't be getting their sashimi again. Unless they start marinating the fish properly ahead of time to infuse the flavor. I most definitely have "experienced better", and was tempted to go with two stars, but my wife liked hers a little better plus the staff was really nice, so I'll bump it to three.
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