Hankering Hawaiian? Poke Inn Aims to Satisfy Island Cravings at Sanlitun Soho

Deep in the desolate, disheveled halls of Sanlitun Soho's building 5 sits a Hawaiian oasis.

No, we're not talking about the sandy, clear water, blue sky kind. Instead, we mean a culinary paradise called Poke Inn, which serves up the time honored Hawaiian salmon bowls that are a rarity in Beijing.

Despite the exotic origins of this dish, Beijingers will have no trouble acquiring a taste for it. That's especially true of Poke Inn's no-frills take, which includes some Far East twists like a kimchi option. However the seaweed and sweet corn toppings, sticky rice, and other ingredients will make the bowls feel foreign yet familiar to both Chinese and expat patrons.

Like much of Sanlitun Soho, Poke Inn is nothing much to look at (at first glance, it's yet another drab, tiny, hole-in-the-wall eatery), and like many of the complex's other restaurants serves up its wares in straightforward fashion. However it stands out from the complex's abundance of subpar venues – which mostly come across as obscure chain restaurants serving highly processed and bland eats – by featuring quite fresh salmon and exotic Hawaiian toppings like crunchy fried burdock potatoes and bubbly orange fish roe.

The salmon itself comes in a few varieties like soothing Molokai avocado, Maui spicy mayo (which somewhat disappointingly lacked the hot kick we were expecting from its title), big island spicy (which did, thankfully, have the hotter flavor its moniker implies) and Kauai wasabi. Patrons can choose two of those juicy fresh fish options, which are diced into generous chunks, before selecting a staple of salad or sticky rice (or both) and however many toppings they'd like.

The bowls are readied right in front of you and served in either mini, medium, and large varieties for RMB 48, 58, and 68 respectively. Although the price for the mini bowl is a bit steep, the cost-size ratio of the medium and large bowls is more reasonable, with the medium quelling our hunger. Of course the bowls are also filling because of their generous helping of rice, which are balanced quite deftly with the lighter salmon staple and sprinklings of toppings. That's a difficult balance to strike, but Poke Inn pulls it off.

While we're guessing more high-end Hawaiian joints like Alan Wong's (which was recently recommended to us by the coincidentally identically named owner of Hatsune) have far more creative and memorable takes on these salmon bowls, Poke Inn's rendition is light yet filling, exotic yet accessible, and unassumingly situated and priced just right for much of the Sanlitun set. And, like the Hawaiian surf at high tide, we hope that this unique eatery – along with other strong recent openings like the newly relocated Pachakutiq – prompt this Soho's swaths of dismal venues to strive for higher quality. 

Poke Inn
Daily, 11am-9pm. Unit 5210, F/2 Retail Mall 5, Sanlitun Soho, 8 Gongti Beilu, Chaoyang District
朝阳区工体北路8号三里屯SOHO5号商场2层5-210

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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photos courtesy of Poke Inn