I don’t remember poke (pronounced poh-kay, which is why some places are spelling it poké) from when I was a kid, visiting my grandma in Hawaii during summer vacation, but I do remember being introduced to it years ago by my brother who lives in Hawaii with his family. Lots of grocery stores and delis had big vats of the stuff behind glass counters and it’s delicious: pieces of raw fish, lightly cured in Asian dressing (for example, soy, sesame seed oil, some red pepper flakes, and chopped macadamia nuts!).
But then I heard that poké had become a trend. Our cousins in Vancouver opened up their very own store, The Poke Guy. Some restaurants in Sydney have started serving it and there’s even a Poke restaurant in Coogee that I have yet to try. I tried making it myself for an appetizer for a dinner party: it was delicious but I wasn’t willing to trust making it with a cheaper cut of fish, yet cutting up sashimi-grade tuna is… pricey.
In any case, I’ve been curious about this trend, and coming to New York City, it seems there are poke sellers everywhere! I tried out Poketeria in Midtown, mostly by chance, and because my days were running out in NYC and I wanted to try it before I left. I am always a bit fascinated with how fast food translates cultures into product, and impressed too, when it works. They’ve taken the spirit of poke (fresh, tasty, raw fish) and then give you a million options.
At Pokéteria, you can get poke burritos, just poke, a poke salad, or poke on rice, which is what I opted for. I chose the fish of the day, but there were about three different fish selections. And four different sauces. And dozens of different things you could put on it. It was a little overwhelming.
But what I ended up with, some mango, Japanese seaweed, edamame, corn and some crunchy bits… all mixed up in a creamy sauce, was delicious. They know how to put the right proportion of ingredients together, and for maybe $15 or $16, including a Japanese ice tea and taxes, it’s a nice meal, healthy enough and healthier still without the rice! I love sashimi but it is pricy, so this is taking the Hawaiian innovation and serving up sashimi, basically, in a more accessible form, and so that you can make a full meal of it. I understand the appeal.
I’m curious whether the trend will continue or peak or fall back into a kind of baseline of poke restaurants that become a permanent part of an eating experience in some cities.
In other news, I think with this post, I’m caught up with all my culinary experiences in the Big Apple. What a fun month it was, and I didn’t come back to Sydney as round as doughnut, as I thought I might. NYC = lots of walking. Also, I exercised some restraint. But NYC: I will be back to food blog my way again through your amazing streets!
If NYC was spectacular Korean and Mexican food, Sydney to me seems lately to be spectacular Italian food. It’s not fancy, but the flavours are so punchy, the execution of the dishes so great, and the prices reasonable: it’s got me all aglow.
Pizza Mario was awfully good. They got shut down by some problem with the tax office, and whaddaya know: Maybe Frank is a worthy successor. First of all, it’s just a fun place. Silly music, fun atmosphere, and they even took our booking for 8:15pm on a Friday night. The staff all have fabulous Italian accents too.
We ordered two types of pizza, a red one and a white one… a good contrast. The white one I believe was a Tartufo ($24) with mozzarella, porcini mushrooms, truffle oil and parmigiano… a creamy and rich combo. The red one was, I believe, a Marinella ($20), with tomato, anchovies, garlic, cherry tomatoes and olives. It was very heavy on the anchovies but I didn’t mind the punch of it.
We also had a Spaghetti Burrata ($26), and how can you go wrong with spaghetti over a fresh burrata, with some home made bread crumb, tomato confit and anchovy oil. It was heavy on the anchovy oil but I didn’t mind it. To pretend to be a bit healthy, we had a salad, but I reckon it was the least green and healthy of the four salads on offer: a panzanella salad ($13), the tuscan salad that mixed crisp bread, sweet spanish onions and cherrty tomatoes. I loved this, great combo of textures. The flavour, presentation, everything: awesome. Add to this that they have a perfectly reasonably costing and tasting house red ($36, apparently 2014 from Victoria) and we were happy campers. Impressive.
The playlist at Desnuda was the soundtrack to my teenage years. Not only the background music but favourite songs by A-ha, Human League, Stevie Nicks and New Order. It was kind of freaking me out.
We had fun poking around, and the store owners were extremely nice. No one worried that we were only looking (and many are wholesale only, so we wouldn’t be able to buy if we’d wanted to). One store had particularly lush flowers, and we went in, and I laughed to discover it was a fake flower store. They were pretty convincing when not up close.
For a quick lunch in Williamsburg before I head to the airport, I stumble across La Isla Restaurant (I was tempted again by Mexico 2000 but there was not a soul inside). All sorts of tasty greasy fried things in the window.
What was hilarious was that even if I do speak some Spanish, I couldn’t get on their wavelength. No menu was offered. I tried to say, cheerily, in English (thinking my Spanish wasn’t good enough), what should I have? The two guys just looked blankly at me, and then would look away and deal with other customers. All of the ladies on one side were having a sort of stew or soup with pork hock. Someone came in and asked how much the rice and beans were ($4) so I decided to go with that (yellow rice and beans of a brown colour rather than black beans) and some chicken stew.
It was delicious really, tender chicken stewed for ages, though again, too much food. I read on reviews on Yelp that I should have gone for the roast pork (pernil). And I’m curious what those fried things were!
Just a last adventure before I leave New York City (drizzling and cold, a good day to leave) and the adventure is food from islands where they speak Spanish. This 
Originally a Cuban restaurant, and taken over by owners from the Dominican Republic, it serves up humble, traditional food. So, a long line-up at the counter and then the difficulty of trying to figure out what to order. I often go for oxtail but thought I’d try their beef stew.
I didn’t think I’d get to eat Soul Food again before I left New York City, but I took an express train in the wrong direction and ended up in Harlem. Seriously. So, after chilling out at Mist with wine on tap and my laptop, I headed to … which Yelp told me was top rated, even higher than the famous Sylvia’s.
On Sunday night at 7pm, there was a short wait (of 15 minutes or so) and a woman who fainted or had some attack on the sidewalk. There were people all around her though thankfully, three of them were nurses. A fire truck pulled up eventually, and the siren kept flashing during most of my meal. With only one stomach, I was worried about choosing the right thing, but most reviews (and the waiter) confirmed that fried chicken is the most famous. You get to choose between breast and leg (I’m a leg man) and two sides.
