Pokē-Pokē

Skate Park

After lunch, we rented bikes and made our way to the pier and down the trails. You can bike down the windy path and enjoy the beach on one side, and a market on the other. There’s always a ton of people biking, rollerblading, moms with strollers, runners, and even skaters hitting up the park nearby.

Muscle Beach

Biggest (and baddest) thing to see: Muscle Beach, where body builders go to work out! You can see the original Muscle Beach just south of the Santa Monica Pier, now used for gymnasts and acrobatics. The weight pen has since moved to the one further down the bike path, close to Venice Beach. This guy is no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he posed for cameras anyways!

Optimus Prime & Bumblebee

Art Pieces

R2D2

The market runs on the other side of the bike path, opposite of the beach front. Little shops and booths carrying clothing, jewelry, artwork, and miscellaneous paraphernalia. One of the shops caught our eye, displays of welded metals and gears to create popular characters in science fiction. The Transformer characters were huge! Hard to believe somebody made that from spare bits and pieces of metal. The models on display were for sale so Joe nabbed me a Wall-E figure! So cute! Can you spot him with all the other characters?

Venice Beach

As the sun started to set (at 5pm?!), we made our way back from Venice Beach.

Poke-Poke

I stopped dead when I saw the Pokē-Pokē sign (pronounced poke-ie). Hawaiian pokē?! I’m down! Pokē is a raw fish dish, much like the Japanese sashimi or the European tartare. Just another name for a raw fish dish. It’s usually an appetizer, made with cubed ahi tuna, salt, soy sauce, roasted candlenut, sesame oil and seaweed. I’ve never actually had pokē despite traveling to Hawaii three times already (my pre-food crazy days).

Poke Flavors

The menu had tweeks of the traditional pokē for those who wanted a little something different. First you chose your size, small or large. Then white or brown rice, or no rice at all if you want to stay true to Hawaiian style. Choose your flavor and add-on toppings of your liking and voilà! You’ve got pokē!

Hawaiian Sun Drink

We were thirsty after our bike ride and this is one of my favorite drinks in Hawaii! I had completely forgot about this brand. It comes in multiple fruit flavors, my favorite is guava, but they’re all good!

Ahi Tuna Poke

We ended up ordering the spicy tuna flavor and I added on seaweed and asked for sriracha on the side for Joe. He didn’t even need it. It was a good level of heat! Mixed in with white and green onions, sesame oil and a deliciously sweet marinade, balancing out with crunchy seaweed strands. We chose the brown rice (extra healthy today!), and it was nice and moist, not dry at all. Absolutely loved this dish! If I we didn’t have plans already for dinner, I would have ordered more flavors to try!

For less that $10, Pokē-Pokē is a win. Most of my blog posts so far have been at moderate to higher end restaurants, but want to know a secret? I absolutely love good, cheap eats. They’re the best kind. Delicious, good food for a steal! This local hideaway is a must if you’re down in the area! Love-love Pokē-Pokē!

Pokē-Pokē
www.poke-poke.com
1827 Ocean Front Walk
Venice, CA
(424) 228-5132

Twitter: @Eat_Poke

 

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