Poke House - Palo Alto — Restaurant in Palo Alto

Poke house is the chipotle of poke bowl, which means you make your own poke bowl by picking and choosing all the ingredients. It is located in a strip mall, and parking can be somewhat tricky. Some parking spots are 20-30 minute parking spots, so please pay attention to the signs. otherwise, you will get a parking ticket if you overstay your parking. They have 3 different bowl options- small, medium, and large. My friend and I, we both got the small bowl and found it very filling. You basically pick 5 different things for your bowl- 1. Base 2. Protein 3. Mix-ins 4. Toppings 5. Sauce Each bowl also comes with a free scoop of crab salad so don't forget to try that out. For base, you can pick between sushi rice, spring mixed greens, zucchini noodles, or brown rice. Under proteins, you have 8 different options - ahi tuna, scottish salmon, spicy tuna, octopus, shrimp, tofu, and spicy miso salmon. You can pick multiple sauces for your poke bowl. You have multiple sauce options- house shoyu, lime ponzu, miso aioli, sweet unagi, sriracha aioli, garlic soy vinaigrette, and house chili. For mix-ins, you have corn, cucumber, edamame, green onions, grape tomato, hijiki seaweed, jalapaneo, mango, masago, pineapple, purple cabbage and sweet onion. You can add multiple mix-ins to your bowl. There is no limit. And lastly for your toppings, you've got crispy onion, furikake, nori strips, ogo seaweed, pickled ginger, seasame seeds, sliced almonds, togarashi, wasabi, avocado (+$2.50) and seaweed salad (+$2.00).

The place wasn't busy when we went there and the service was fast. The ingredients were fresh. If you don't like making your own bowl, then they also have some signature bowls that you can pick from. I would say it is just a little pricy but a...

Absolutely terrible experience. I’ve been a regular customer and always knew what to expect but on my last visit, I was served a bowl with vinaigrette so overpowering it was inedible. I know this sauce well, and I clearly explained that something was off. Instead of taking my concern seriously, the team leader literally pointed to the trash and said “thank you.” That was their response. No apology, no effort to check the sauce, no offer to remake the bowl. Just complete dismissal.

I ended up paying not because I was okay with it, but because I was left with no option. And when I followed up, I received a generic excuse blaming an “incorrect sauce selection,” which clearly shows they didn’t even read my complaint properly.

It’s not about the $17. It’s about being treated with basic respect and listened to. If this is how they handle customer feedback, brushing it off and refusing to take any responsibility, I have zero interest in going back. Management clearly needs serious training in customer service and how to handle real complaints.

If you ever have an issue here, don’t expect anyone to...

Great food, always fresh and tasty. Only issue was their new ordering system. I used to go there all the time and they would still let you order at the counter even during Covid times. Now they’ve started online only so if you show up, you have to scan at the door to order your food. Wouldn’t be a huge deal if it worked but seems to be a bit glitchy. Couldn’t add anything to my cart and I literally watched 4 other people come up, try to order, get frustrated and leave to go somewhere else in the marketplace as I did the same. Staff wasn’t helpful as it was a new system for them as well and they didn’t seem familiar with how to troubleshoot it. I’m sure they will unfortunately end up losing some business because of this and I’m not sure why they had to make the switch in the first place. Food is tasty enough I’ll probably eventually try and go back once they’ve...