SPLASH POKE — Restaurant in Edmonton

One of the joyful certainties of the foodie's world is that sooner or later all food trends (fads?) arrive at wherever you are. Sushi on a conveyor belt, Brazilian steakhouses with meat on a sword, pizza with cheese injected into the crust, and now, Hawaiian Poké in Edmonton!

The hunnybunny and I have loved us on some poké in the islands, feasting with the city construction workers at a tiny storefront serving heaps of fresh fish and condiments in a bowl. Good times, good times.

We've had the more urbanized presentation in Vancouver, and there are several poké places on Alameda Island, where I live just outside San Francisco. (Heck, even the San Francisco Costco gets poké directly from Hawai'i!) So it was with a pretty light heart that we skipped into Splash Poke to check out the offerings.

It's pretty straight-forward: pick either a pre-designed bowl or DIY, which itself is a simple process:

(1) pick rice, noodles, or salad as your base

(2) pick protein, sauce(s), and mix-ins to populate your bowl

(3) pick toppings and garnish to finish up

The potential for disaster is going nuts on all the options and completely obscuring the wonder that is sushi-grade fish with sweet and creamy sauces and stuffs. There's a reason why the most traditional presentation is the fish, soy sauce, and a bit of wasabi.

So, having been warned, let me relate that I put in my suggestions for the base (salad) and proteins (ahi tuna & scallops) and stepped away from the counter to secure a couple of seats. Hunnybunny went all Jackson Pollock on me, adoring the two bowls with all manner of sauces, toppings, crunches, creamies, and more! And she wound up making two completely different, spectacularly satisfying non-traditional taste sensations that kept a smile on my face for hours!

Splash Poke is urban, loud, cramped, and perfect for those moments when you need something different, tasty,...

Delicious, fresh fish bowls! LOVED the Works bowl I just had!

I had an invite to the grand opening earlier in the week, but the line was too long and it was cold. I'm not waiting 2hrs to try a restaurant on its first day with no place to sit. Decided to come back on the weekend. Arrived at 6pm and the 3 sit down tables and 1 table with stools facing the window were occupied. 4 guests were ahead of us. I found it odd and a waste of space to have the two different lines to queue for making your own bowl and for pickups/premade bowls. I ordered the works with brown rice, and their salad rolls. There was a small accident where some contents of my bowl were spilled as it was completed and brought to the area to pay, and they quickly put together another bowl within a few minutes. Great save Splash Poke!

We were able to get a small round table, and began to eat. So delicious! The salmon and tuna were both tasty and the mix of rice, seaweed, and other mixins like corn and pineapple were all cool fresh and great mix to the bowl. The salad rolls were also delicious. We loved the Sriracha aioli!

While I'm super pleased with the delicious meal, and would gladly come back, the place is so tiny and would not come back if it was any busier than what I experienced this evening. I'd like to see the wasted space of the 2nd queueing line used as seating area. Add more tables! Hence my 4 star review.

Will most likely do take out next time I come!

I highly recommend Splash Poke. The fish bowls are delicious and is a great new way to have sushi, the Hawaiian way! All the best success and glad the service and...

First time ordering from this location and while the food was fresh, it was also quite bland.

I love poke bowls and have had them from many different establishments, most located in Ontario where I'm originally from.

Reasons I'm giving my order 3 stars: The avocado was quite mushy and not what I'd consider overly fresh. I don't know if it's pre-frozen but to me, the quality of it was not worth the $3+ add in cost. I actually took it out of the bowl and didn't eat it. My mixer was sriracha mayo but there was absolutely no spice. I don't know if maybe they forgot but I was glad to have included jalapenos because without those, this would have had zero heat whatsoever. I've never had shrimp in a poke bowl that was just.. shrimp. Normally it's tempura shrimp. The shrimp wasn't bad and it didn't state tempura shrimp on the menu so not docking a point for this but was somewhat surprised. Added cilantro to my order and it wasn't diced or cut very much so there were multiple 3-4" stems with leaves of cilantro throughout, which isn't the most enjoyable to eat and it certainly doesn't disperse the flavour throughout the bowl. No idea what the Splash Aioli is supposed to taste like because, again, the entire thing was kind of bland and I couldn't pick out any distinct flavour in the sauce.

Positives: The salmon was fresh and the shrimp was fresh. The order was ready quickly. The seaweed salad was quite good. Decent ratio of rice to toppings.

It was a decent deal because of their 2 for 1 special but even with that factored in, I don't know if I'll...