For some reason, most of the recently opened poke restaurants over the past few years are located downtown. Bucking that trend is Poke Bar Middleton, which opened a few months ago in a new development on Elmwood Avenue.
Like other poke restaurants, Poke Bar Middleton offers signature bowls while allowing you to build your own ($13 regular, $16 large). The venue is small–you’ll likely want to take your order to go.
The regular size bowl is plenty for one meal. You get your choice of white, brown or purple rice or even spinach with each bowl. The one time I tried to get the purple rice, the restaurant was out.
The first bowl I tried was the spicy tuna bowl ($14, $18). The spicy tuna itself was delicious. If I were to get this bowl again, I would tell them to ease up on the red onion, as the whopping amount overpowered the dish–I eventually had to pluck out the pieces. Despite the inclusion of chili flakes and jalapenos, this bowl was not spicy (nor were most of the slices of jalapeno). In fact, the bowl needed some sauce for more flavoring.
I loved the seafood mix bowl ($15, $19). My favorite part was the tiny octopi, which were surprisingly tender and had absorbed the tasty poke sauce. The chunks of salmon, tuna and scallops were huge and appreciated. I did think it was odd that the shells were left on the tails of the shrimp, though. The fried crispy onion bits that were sprinkled on top were so much more enjoyable than the red onion from the other bowl.
The other specialty bowls are tuna mayo ($13, $17), teriyaki chicken ($13, $17) and California ($13, $16), of which the large bowl seems to be mispriced at $16.
Poke Bar Middleton is open for lunch and dinner Monday-Saturday.
