Pokeatery: San Mateo, CA, USA
This by far was an amazing find, and I am so excited that this little poke cafe was right around the corner from my favorite coffeeshop in NorCal. Poke, by definition, is a Hawaiian dish that consists of basically sashimi grade fish that is diced and tossed in a light sauce. However, Pokeatery takes this in a different direction, serving poke how the customer likes it. We get to choose a greens (kale, mixed greens, sea tangle noodles), two types of fish (salmon, tuna-maguro or blue fin, and then yellowfin tuna), as well as many of the toppings they have available. Toppings included seaweed salad, furokake rice seasoning, cucumber salad, sesame seeds, seasoned roe, among many other things.
You wait in line, and then you go ahead and order your dish. At the end, you simply pay for your meal, and take it away in a biodegradable box. If you want, you can also have pineapple soft serve as dessert.
For those of you who really like sashimi and poke, this is fantastic. It is healthy, not overly flavorful, and the fish is ridiculously fresh. It caters to different tastes so it can please many different types of patrons. However, I have to admit, if a customer hasn’t had all the ingredients on their menu, they can potentially make a poke catastrophe.
Below is my poke combination: 2 salmon, 1 tuna with sea tangle noodles, kale, seaweed salad, cucumber salad, roe, among a few other things like mango and sushi ginger.
Super ridiculously healthy but very tasty. It’s more filling than meets the eye because of all the protein. I hope something like Pokeatery comes to Atlanta. We definitely could use more fresh seafood in this part of the country! If you wanted to check out Pokeatery, you can find them just down the street from Philz Coffee in downtown San Mateo:
