Steve’s Poke Bar (Lougheed): Simple and Tasty Poke

Our first experience with Steve’s Poke Bar was with their location up at SFU. While we were quite impressed with their poke, we’re hardly ever up in the SFU area. So I was quite pleased that they opened up a brand new spot in the new food court area of Lougheed Town Centre.

While there are a ton of “poke” shops that have opened up around town over the last couple of years, I find that most of them are a far cry from the simple and classic poke that you get in Hawaii. In my opinion, toppings are great, but should take a back seat to the main attraction… the sashimi. Fortunately, Steve’s is one of the places around town that seems to get that and tries to stick with the Hawaiian-style of poke while still offering customers the option of adding the toppings of their choice (after all, Vancouverites are quite fickle when it comes to food).

It’s been a while since I was last at Lougheed Town Centre and they’re doing a lot of development in the area. I had trouble finding the food court at first because they shut down the old food court location so I had to walk around until I finally found it on the 2nd floor near The Bay. When I visited in early January, Steve’s was one of the few food outlets open but that worked out for me perfectly.

I ordered up their Spicy Scallop and Shoyu Ahi ($13.40) on a bed of quinoa and added edamame, wakame, corn, white onions, green onions, imitation crab, and fried garlic. It’s actually a pretty good size bowl.

Steve’s Traditional Poke Bowl ($16) is one of their set bowls which keeps things simple… you get 2 scoops each of their signature Shoyu and Spicy Ahi on a bed of furikake seasoned rice. It’s a good value for the amount of poke that you get and lets you enjoy the flavours of the pre-marinaded fish.

On my next visit, I decided to try their daily special – Ala Moana Ahi (extra $1) and paired it with the Spicy Scallop on a bed of greens and added wakame, edamame, corn, imitation crab, green onions, white onions, and crispy garlic bits with shoyu and spicy mayo sauce. The Ala Moana Ahi has a bit of a spicy kick to it compared to their regular shoyou ahi.

I actually quite enjoyed my poke with the salad option so I came back the following week and tried it again but picked the Spicy Salmon and Shoyu Ahi and added edamame, corn, pineapple, green onions, white onions, wakame, imitation crab, crispy garlic bits and spicy mayo sauce.

After a few visits, I realized that two scoops of poke isn’t enough for me so I started switching things up and ordering 3 scoops… Spicy Salmon, Spicy Scallop, Shoyu Ahi… first on salad and then on quinoia

I would like to see a bit more rotation of special items… maybe see tako or some other type of fish.

After recently coming back from our trip to Hawaii, the first thing I did was come back to Steve’s because it’s one of the closest things to Hawaiian poke that you can get here.

9855 Austin Avenue, Food Court of Lougheed Town Centre
Burnaby, BC

www.stevespokebar.ca