Poke Guys

Well curated ingredients for a quality poke bowl

Poke Guys was one of the first to jump on the poke fad when it hit Toronto in 2015. While other establishments have went bust, Poke Guys is still going strong because of two reasons: ingredients and location. Situated between the Financial District and the shopping zone around Yonge-Dundas Square, it gets a steady stream of customers all week. Of course, the food has to be good to get repeat business.

Exterior of Poke Guys
Poke Guys

The poke bowl fad

Traditional Hawaiian poke is very simple. It is just marinated raw fish. The flavours aren’t too crazy. The usual suspects are shoyu (soy sauce), sesame, and seaweed. Poke morphed into a rice bowl on mainland USA and exploded in popularity in 2014. Since it really is a salad bowl, anything goes. There is a dizzying variety of toppings and proteins to choose from. Japanese ingredients are popular, like tobiko (fish roe) and gari (pickled ginger). Kimchi, avocado, and jalapeƱos are also ubiquitous.

Poke at Poke Guys
Poke selection at Poke Guys. Top row: sweet and spicy shrimp, spicy shoyu salmon, spicy shoyu tuna, masago. Middle row: honey ginger salmon, classic shoyu tuna, crab slaw. Bottom row: wasabi octopus, classic shoyu salmon, tofu, slaw.

Some people view poke as deconstructed sushi or a less skilled version of chirashi don (raw fish on rice). I view it as a food in its own right. I agree it doesn’t take a lot of training to put together a poke bowl. What it lacks in refinement more than makes up for it in creativity. The keys to a good poke bowl are

  1. Freshness
  2. Harmony
  3. Proportion

Ideally, the fish should be fresh and not from frozen. Vegetables should be crisp. All components should complement one another. A common mistake is to have too many strong flavours like kimchi and onions. It overwhelms the delicate taste of raw fish. Another pet peeve of mine is having too much filler materials and not enough protein.

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