Hello Poke — Restaurant in Redmond

First off, the staff is really great so my review doesn't reflect on them.

Pre-covid, Hello Poke was above and beyond all other poke we had ever experienced; when we first moved to the area, we tried out every single poke place within a 25-40 mile radius multiple times. We ate at Hello Poke very frequently, and it was amazing how consistently good their bowls were; I always ordered the same bowl every time. The rice was always perfectly made and served at the perfect temperature, and there was just something incredible about the taste - it was very special.

Sadly, we've given them 3 tries post-covid, and that something special is gone. The first time, the rice was pretty bad, and we were hoping it was just a one off bad experience due to them getting back into the swing of things. However, the next 2 times the rice was mostly back to normal (not really -- temp off, or too hard / chunky), but overall it was missing that amazing taste. I ordered the same exact thing I always do, and it was the same employees. I honestly thought that maybe my taste buds were ruined somehow during lockdown, but after recently revisiting another old favorite sushi place, they fortunately have the same great taste. Meaning that something about Hello Poke has changed, and now it just tastes like an average poke bowl, which is tremendously saddening.

I'm curious if any of the old regulars have noticed this. I'm sure that people new to Hello Poke won't know any better, but for me this was a huge personal tragedy as I seriously loved Hello Poke and psychotically recommended it to all my friends or people new to Redmond/Bellevue area, even when they weren't asking for recommendations.

I hope they can resurrect whatever it was they were doing pre-covid, and if they do I'll fly across the planet from wherever I am to patron them again. But for now, farewell my...

Food is pretty good. Prices have gone up in the past year though. Also, other than being closed on Sundays and Mondays for some reason, they are closed randomly during the week a lot. Sometimes multiple days in a row which is unfortunate. They could probably make good money if they had normal hours and even bring their prices down. Seems like missed opportunity for more business… You can’t order pickup online or through DoorDash occasionally as they disable it even when they are open. Just an odd way of running a restaurant. Their portions can be generous so not sure what others are complaining about but you can customize what you want.

Way overpriced drinks. For example, a bottle of water is $3.25. You could get a case of 24 for that price at QFC….

Also calories aren’t posted anywhere. Hard to say if you are eating 700 calories for a bowl or 1000+ for a bowl. Would be 4-5 stars if it wasn’t for being closed all the time, overpriced drinks and missing...

A few things. 2 stars ONLY because it was tasty.

This is a large bowl. Mostly rice - very very stingy on any veggies or protein. I paid an extra dollar for avocado and got 1/5th of avo (teaspoon maybe) ?

Service is non existent - they try to avoid you as much as possible and are annoyed with questions. You have to order on a screen - you can’t see anything behind the glass it’s all hidden. The screen is confusing to say the least.

We ordered at 7:40 and the server was certain to keep letting us know they close at 8. Not in a nice way.

They don’t speak to you aside from: order ready, we close at 8.

When we spend $50 at a poke place we are paying for service...