COCONUTS HOT SPOT — It seems that healthy is trendy in 2018 since, following our review of For Fit’s Sake earlier this week, we have another healthy eating outpost in Asoke to present. It’s also the first restaurant to specialize in trendy Hawaiian poke bowls in the city.
If you aren’t familiar with poke, it’s a bowl lined with rice and some variation of raw fish, vegetable and sauce on top. When mixed together, it’s magical. Some call it deconstructed sushi, others call it a newly discovered island treasure, we call it perfect.
Hunter Poke is located on the B1 floor of the Interchange 21 building in Asoke with additional locations in Thonglor’s community mall The Commons, and in Phrom Phong’s Emquartier. Decorated with vintage photos of Hawaii, surfboards, blond pine wood, and postcards, this is a nice place to sit and eat just steps from the bustle of the nearby busy thoroughfares.
More fast casual than fine dining, this is a great place to grab a quick bite after evening errands or at lunch.
On a recent evening, we started with the drinks on their specials menu, the tropical smoothie features passion fruit, lychee, and coconut water (THB150). Their smoothies are made without sugar, syrup, or ice but still manage to taste decadent.
We also ordered the small versions of four bowls and they began to appear in rapid succession. Bowls come in three sizes — small, medium, and large. The smalls are about the size of a cereal bowl and pretty inexpensive. This size would make a perfect snack or light lunch. All bowls can also be made on a bed of greens instead of rice for no additional charge.
We tried The Classic (THB179 for small) first. Filled with salmon, mango, pomelo, avocado, fried shallots, spicy mayo, and house special shoyu sauce, you can think of this as your crash course in poke. Mixing the classic fish hunks with the sweetness of the fruit, richness of the avocado, saltiness of the shoyu, and crunchiness of the shallots, it would be hard to find a better example of why the poke bowl is having a global moment right now.
Up next was the K Bowl (THB159 for small). A poke meets Korean food fusion bowl, it features raw chunks of tuna, kimchi, grilled okra, wakame seaweed, and edamame in a spicy kimchi sauce. It certainly was spicy. It was also cold and filling with a pleasing array of tastes and textures.
We kept the party going by also ordering the Bangkok Dangerous (THB139 for small), which arrived at our table with the familiar tangy waft of Thai seafood sauce. Always a fan of the traditional tangy condiment, we dug right in. This bowl is packed with salmon, cucumber, guava, Asian pear, and fried shallots. The intense spiciness is only soothed by the cool freshness of the guava, pear, and cucumber. However, we still had to order another drink while eating this one.
The last of our main course arrived in the form of the earthy Triple C bowl (THB250 for small). A complete departure from the other tropical, spicy, fresh, and sweet bowls, this entry is as brown and savory as it gets. It is made up of salmon, seared prawn, engawa, zucchini, mushroom, eggplant and truffle shoyu.
The last item we tried was a fruit bowl that acted as a shared dessert. We tried the Avocado Bowl (THB299, one size). The large bowl came filled to the brim with a pureed mixture of avocado, Asian pear, mango and coconut water. The mixture is in a sorbet-like consistency and is heavenly despite being made without sugar. On their fruit bowls, you get a choice of three free toppings. We choose fresh mango, banana, and mixed seeds but could have also had granola, goji berries, crispy coconut, or coconut flakes. The bowl was large enough that we took part of it home to have for breakfast the next morning.
We left feeling stuffed but still — somehow — very healthy.
FIND IT:
Hunter Poke (original location)
399 Interchange 21 Sukhumvit Road
Open daily 8:30am-9pm (poke available from 11am, fruit bowls available before)
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