Reviews The Poke Shop

I lived in Honolulu Hawaii for 12 years and have eaten my share of poke. I love the stuff. Poke Shop really surprised me, the ahi and spicy salmon were on point. They offer way more toppings than you'd find in Hawaii. The rice was great too, warm, slightly sticky and onolicious as we say in the island. Big mahalo to Poke Shop for making me feel like I was back in Hawaii. �

I have never been a big fan of raw fish, but this place does it right. The quality of their salmon and Tuna is something else. Fantastic cuisine, an easy 5/5

Great addition to the downtown food scene, as well as the ever-growing Poke scene. Generous portions and fresh food, as well as some interesting drinks.

Love the concept and love the food even more, super fun place to go in gastown.

freshest poke in town hands down ! got the most unique lineup of drinks soo good that its hard to pick! great atmosphere with hip decor, along with fantastic customer service!

Best poke I have had in Vancouver. Fantastic service and great location to eat at. Definitely check it out if you are downtown!

Will go all the way to gastown satisfy cravings � Place is hip and trendy . Food is yummy and healthy.

Meal:  I ordered the Hawaiian Themed Bowl which has like spicy salmon and spicy scallops but it wasn't really that spicy. . Service:  Staff was friendly, they gave me a free scoop of guac. Atmosphere: SO HOT. Serious sauna in here where I took a moment and asked myself, it's so hot in here, is the fish safe to eat. Apparently, they will be putting in air conditioning next year but it's seriously unbearable.

I figured that it was about time that I get on the bandwagon since the poke bowl storm swooped across the Vancouver food scene. I liked that there were so many options for bases here! I mean you get to choose from white rice, mixed greens, zoodles and purple rice! I couldn't decide between the zoodles or purple grain but I decided to go with the purple grain since I was feeling hungry that day. They also have lots of protein options which was super awesome. Of course, I had to go for the sashimi type options so naturally, I went with the ahi tuna and spicy baby scallops. Last but not least, I got mine topped with all sorts of wonderful toppings like green onion, red radish, beets, pineapple, watermelon, mango and pickled ginger :) My favorite part about poke bowl was the variety of options! Definitely worth the visit!

Fresh food. Protein well seasoned and tasty. Regular size good enough for lunch or big snack. Well decorated and good ambiance. A bit pricy at $12.95 for a regular size but a lot of that can be attributed to the fish cost.

First time trying Poké in Vancouver. I've perviously tried it in Hawaii, where I quite enjoyed it. The Poke Shop lets you customize your own poke bowl with a base, two or three proteins, sauce and a wide variety of toppings. My favourite proteins were the ahi tuna and spicy albacore tuna. My favourite toppings to get were the mango and pineapple, which went great with the tuna. This combo gave a great Hawaiian flavour. Only problem I have with this place is that is a bit pricey and left me a little hungry afterwards. Definitely will go around Vancouver to try the other poke places.

Given that we couldn't get our proper fill of calories at the Gluten-free Expo, we resorted to eating elsewhere for lunch (one cannot subsist off of samples alone.).   Having tried two poké shops in the past month alone (The Poké Guy and Poké Time) I was keen on seeing how the Poké Shop would stack up.


  Our last attempt at coming here was foiled in that they were closed for the day (despite it being a Saturday.) We held our breathe as we made the short walk from Canada Place, pleading that they would be open (we weren't feeling brunch that day.)

  One thing that was readily apparent was that they seemed to be quite stingy with their proteins (compared to the Poké Guy) and made up for that fact by piling your bowl with filler ingredients (in the form of carb-heavy rice and unlimited toppings.) We found the fish at the Poké Guy to be better marinated, but appreciated their usage of organic ingredients (in the form of organic 12 grain purple rice, organic mixed greens, and organic grilled chicken.)

The restaurant is located at GasTown. The location is not very easy for people to find it. But, the food there are Very great and health. You can make your own food bowls. The prices are cheaper too. It's a good experience to try Hawaiian Food ❤

Love it! Poke is a go to dinner for me and this new poke shop in Gastown is amazing. It is also beautiful inside! I will be back many times.

I was fortunate enough to be invited by my good friend Naomi (constantcravings.ca) to participate in a media tasting at The Poké Shop in Gastown. I’ve been here previously, and I will say my experiences were very similar, so I will say that there was no “preferential” treatment in terms of service and portion size.

Poke shop is located in the heart of Gastown and is one of the newer poke shops that have opened in the last couple of months. DISCLAIMER: I was invited for a tasting which allowed me to try a bowl of poke as well as a specialty drink. While I was waiting to be served in line, what stood out to me was that they offered UNLIMITED toppings to their poke bowls for the price of either $12.95 for their large bowl or $15.95 for their super large bowl. When asked which size I wanted, honestly, the super large bowl didn't look too big but I can reassure, it's MASSIVE, packed with a lot of rice and the unlimited toppings on top. So judging just by price to portion value, the Poke Shop is definitely on a higher pedestal compared to the other poke shops. The base options differ from the rest as well; they offer purple rice or zoodles (zucchini noodles), which really stood out to me. I opted for the purple rice and topped it with *marinated* ahi tuna and *marinated* sockeye salmon (it's nice to finally see more poke shops marinating their fish rather than topping it all off with sauce). Now onto the toppings. The topping selection seemed endless! There was a total of 30 different toppings ranging from poached egg, to mango, to macaroni salad! I was a little overwhelmed and didn't want to hold the line up so I quickly picked whatever caught my eye first but I'll have to go back again to try all the other toppings that I didn't have a chance to try the first time around. All of this is topped off by the sauce of your choice and I just picked their Signature sauce because it seemed like a safe bet for my first visit. Presentation wise, the bowl was very colourful! Lighting is also good in the store.

OKAY onto taste! Being my third poke store I've tried in Vancouver and 4th I've tried overall (the first ever, was in Seattle at 45th Stop & Shop), I did have SOME expectations coming into this and to be honest, the expectations were higher because of the marinated aspect of it. My other two experiences in Vancouver were at Poke Time & Pokeritto (which, at the time, neither offered marinated fish). Looking into my bowl, I didn't know where to start just because there were so many toppings to pick at and it was SUCH A BIG BOWL (I got the super large, please do not consider getting this unless you are FAMISHED because only 2/10 foodies were able to finish the entire bowl. The rest of us had to pack atleast half the bowls to go! And I'm not sure how good Poke would taste to go..).

My overall impression, it was definitely filling, especially for the price you pay for. The marinated fish didn't end up standing out to me as much as I thought it would and the variety of toppings definitely made each bowl super customized to what YOU want. I feel like each customer would have to be careful when choosing their toppings and not go with TOO many even though it's tempting because the flavour becomes too overwhelming with so many toppings. (I definitely got too excited when I was ordering). I also got the matcha honey tea and it seemed a little bland to me but I feel like they were trying to really aim for the health aspect for their shop and didn't add too much sweetener. I would probably come but I still need to try all the other poke shops to compare before doing so. But definitely, bang for your buck!

I was invited to the soft opening of The Poke Shop in Gastown and I brought along Foodology, Foodgressing and C’est La Vie A Maggi. Since this was a soft opening, things may change slightly in the coming months as they tweak their operations. The Poke Shop is located on Water Street next to Water Street Cafe and across from the steam clock. The store signage isn’t that noticeable if you’re not looking for it.

When invited to media events, I like going in with a little background information, some knowledge on what I will be walking in to. It gives me the ability to ask questions and to probe at a higher level. Typically this is through a restaurant’s website or with reading their press release sent from a marketing personality. If done right, you get a good sense of what a restaurant is about, and an appreciation of what they are offering. However, today there was a large discrepancy between “Poke Shop’s” online and in store persona.