Here’s Where You Can Find The Best Poke Bowls Around New York City
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If you like sushi, you’ll like poke. This vibrant Hawaiian dish is a raw fish salad that can be a main dish or casual street food. Even though you’ll probably find the freshest poke by the water, this umami-packed food trend has spread throughout a lot of major cities. It’s light but also satisfying and includes hearty cubes of raw fish, vegetables, rice, all sorts of Asian-influenced toppings and sauces.
Your average poke bowl will run you between $11 and $14, but it’s always worth it. Poke is the perfect lunch for warmer weather but tastes just as refreshing all year round. Here are the best poke spots around New York City.
Maui Onion
The fast-casual poke spot Maui Onion has a fun, tropical vibe with fresh and simple poke bowls. You’ll choose between signature bowls or build your own. Some of the signature bowls are the Yellow Fin Tuna — roasted garlic wasabi shoyu, wasabi tobiko, seaweed salad, scallion, onion, edamame, pickled chayote, pepper, ginger and crispy garlic — the Norway Salmon — fermented lime gochujang, shoyu ikura, seaweed salad, scallion, onion, cucumber, pickled chayote, pepper and crisped puffed rice — and Grilled Unagi with Maui sweet soy mustard teriyaki, avocado, crab meat salad, garlic, pickled chayote, pepper, ginger, nori and furikake.
Flip Sigi
This casual chef-owned spot is whipping up Filipino-style tacos, rice bowls, burritos, sandwiches and bao buns. Flip Sigi is the perfect place to ease into Filipino food. The two poke bowls here are called Pass the Bowl and Poke Me. The Pass the Bowl has quinoa, mango, avocado, tomato, scallion, cilantro, a calamansi vinaigrette and sushi-grade tuna. The Poke Me has sushi grade tuna, sweet miso, coconut steamed rice, scallions, wontons, carrots and pickled red onions.
The PokéSpot
You can either breeze through the line and take your food to go or sit down and enjoy your poke bowl at The Pokéspot. If you want a bowl already planned out for you, the signature bowls are awesome. You’ll find options like the Avo-Coco Salmon Bowl — salmon, cilantro, edamame, Fresno chili, wasabi tobiko, toasted coconut and avo-coco sauce — or the Spicy Ponzu Tuna Bowl with tuna, sweet onion, masago, macadamia nuts and blood orange ponzu.
If you build your own bowl you can get either two or three types of protein. The awesome part is that if rice is too much for you, you can opt for a base of zucchini noodles or do a mixture of rice and zucchini noodles. You can also get an Avocado Boat, which is basically half of an avocado with fish, sauce and toppings piled on top.
Pokeworks
This poke spot boasts bowls from Sheldon Simeon, an alumnus of Bravo’s “Top Chef” who is also the executive chef and owner of the Tin Roof in Maui. The menu at Pokeworks is inspired by sustainable, seasonal and natural ingredients. You can choose between curated bowls like the Hawaiian classic, Spicy Ahi, Shiso Salmon and Wasabi Shrimp and Scallops.
You can have your poke in three ways: a bowl, burrito or salad. If you get the poke bowl, you get to choose from kale, noodles, rice or quinoa. The burrito comes wrapped in seaweed and the poke salad comes on a bed of fresh romaine lettuce and a spring mix.
Chikarashi
This sleek New York City poke spot has a minimalist design with counter service. The Hawaiian-style poke at Chikarashi is influenced by Japanese Chirashi with some Korean and Chinese flavor components mixed in there. Unlike a lot of poke spots, Chikarashi doesn’t have customizable bowls. The bowls are already designed for you. A few of the signature bowls include Sichuan Chili Salmon, Wasabi Mayo Tuna, Ponzu Salmon and Negitoro Don Tartate. Each bowl looks like a colorful work of art.
Sons Of Thunder
The food at Sons of Thunder is West Coast-inspired. It’s the type of fresh food you might find at a beach shack. All of the food is made to order. Marinated raw fish is served over warm white, brown or cauliflower rice. You can also get your poke over greens with cucumbers, seaweed salad, tobiko and a side of warm tostada chips. For the fish, you can get ahi tuna, salmon or octopus. You can always go crazy with extra toppings like avocado, beets, nori, shrimp tempura, pineapple, serrano peppers and other various crunchy toppings.
Pokéteria
At Pokéteria you can have a poke bowl, poke salad, poke burrito or just plain poke, along with your proteins, your mix-ins, your sauces and your toppings. The protein is high quality, there’s a wide selection of toppings at no extra charge (besides avocado) and it’s relatively affordable in the world of poke prices. You can also get your fish in the shape of a donut here (trendy AF 😎).
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