New restaurants in Hong Kong: Peek-A-Poke offers taste of Hawaii in Causeway Bay, with poke bowls starting from US$8
- Peek-A-Poke’s bowls are a creative spin on the traditional Hawaiian raw fish dish. As well as fish poke bowls, you can also opt for a vegan option
- Try the Ahi-san tuna poke with salad greens, sushi rice, edamame beans, spring onions, mushrooms and wasabi yogurt dressing
Peek-A-Poke has one focus: to serve up healthy bowls of their trendy namesake dish. They don’t have much room for more in the tiny venue that’s down a quiet street in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district.
Dished up from a compact open kitchen equipped with a rice cooker and a toppings station, the Peek-A-Poke bowls are a creative spin on the traditional Hawaiian raw fish dish that reached mainstream popularity in recent years.
Baba Nyonya Restaurant brings Peranakan delights to Hong Kong
The menu, scrawled on blackboards near the cash register, consists of two options: build your own bowl or order one of five house combinations.
Several combinations were pretty straightforward, including a signature raw tuna over sushi rice with seaweed, onion, and tobiko drizzled with dashi sauce. Others mixed in some unexpected ingredients and preparations: a vegan bowl was built around “mushroom poke” while the “Go Green” tossed out the sushi rice in favour of salad greens, cucumber and tomato with a honey vinaigrette.
Though these sounded interesting, we were not about to be lured away from the more traditional raw fish and sushi rice poke bowls.
We opted for the “Ahi-san”, tuna poke over salad greens and sushi rice with edamame beans, spring onions, mushrooms and wasabi yogurt dressing, and the “California”, a salmon poke with cucumber, shredded egg and salmon roe with a “nutty buddy” sauce.
The Ahi-san was our favourite. The wasabi yogurt dressing gave just the right amount of kick to the dish and the salad greens added nice texture without overwhelming the rest of the ingredients. It’s healthy, too.
The salmon poke itself was good, but we found this combination a little bland. The sauce wasn’t quite perceptible while the shredded egg omelette made the bowl, which at HK$98 was the most expensive item on the menu, even drier. The salmon roe gave a nice pop, though.
We had to wait for about 15 minutes for our food, but we considered ourselves lucky. Just after we ordered, a long line formed between tables, with lunch-goers having to wait about that long just to place an order at the counter.
However, it seemed that arriving just 15 minutes before or after the 1pm rush could have averted the wait, as there were only a couple of people ordering by the time we left at 1.30pm.
Takeaway was available, but even though it got crowded, we were happy to eat at one of the high tables, surrounded by kitschy but cute nautical decor.
The most important thing was that the fish and the other ingredients seemed super fresh.
The portions were perfect for us, but all the bowls come in mini versions in the late afternoon only, running from HK$58-HK$68. Regular bowls range from HK$66 for “The Vegan” up to HK$98.
The build your own bowl options were priced similarly, with a few dollars extra for add-ons like crabmeat, octopus or onsen egg. For creative bowl-builders, there were bases of brown rice, salad or sushi rice and a range of toppings to choose from in addition to what was offered in the house bowls, such as tofu and pickled ginger.
A few snacks were available, including golden crab sticks, nori chips, salad and sweet potato fries. A crab salad was HK$45, but all the other sides were a reasonable HK$25 and under.
Spam sushi to seafood ceviche – explore Hawaii’s culinary diversity
Nevertheless, we felt the poke was enough for lunch, and everyone else in the tiny shop seemed to agree, as we did not spot any of our neighbours munching on these sides.
A creative line-up of drinks rounded out the menu including a guava mint julep (HK$22), mango otai (HK$25) and, in homage to the source of the poke bowl, a Hawaiian fruit punch (HK$25).
Peek-A-Poke, 16 Haven Street, Causeway Bay, tel: 5595 7729. Open: Monday to Saturday 11.30am -10pm, Sunday noon-9pm.
