Westcoast Poké

Look, I’m not going to mince words. Poké will always be the stuff being slung around Hawaii with very little ingredients but a whole lot of flavour. When the poké trend blew up in North America, I wasn’t a fan. I felt like it was a bastardization of the Hawaiian culture I came to know and love. So for the longest time, I never wanted to try any poké place. But of course, friends wanted to go check some out and unfortunately I’ve been pretty disappointed. That being said, I’ve finally found a place that’s worth writing about.

west coast poke

Westcoast Poké is a small shop located in the Cambie/Broadway corridor that serves up a couple poké bowls, but also allow you to create your own bowl. There are many items to choose from – proteins, carbs, toppings. They offer three sizes: snack, regular and large. I was debating whether I wanted to get a regular or large, but I ended up sticking with regular as I watched other people order.

west coast poke

I went with the Cascade bowl ($12.50). The bowl is built in front of your eyes and my particular bowl comes with salmon, shoyu, cucumber kimchi, sweet onion, jalapeno, Thai chili, crab salad, spicy seaweed salad and spicy yuzu Sriracha. You then get to choose what kind of finishings you’d like – I had fried garlic, furikake and nori. They also ask how spicy you want your bowl so I went for spiiiicy. I watched him toss in a couple spoons of fresh thai chilis and a generous amount of freshly cut jalapenos.

west coast poke cascade bowl

The heat in my bowl was delicious – it wasn’t overly spicy but a nice hotness. The amount of food in a regular size bowl is worth the price and every ingredient fused nicely with each other. The brown rice I had with the my bowl was good too – it had a nice spring to it but mixed well with the sauce. There was definitely enough sauce in this bowl and I didn’t have to add anymore to it to get the right flavours. I really enjoyed the flavours and heat in this bowl. While it’s not a traditional poké, I appreciate them mixing Westcoast inspired style with the poké.

west coast poke