Poké reaches the shores of Manhattan

NEW YORK — In the late 1990s, the only place in New York City where I could find Hawaiian-style poké (poh-kay) was a fishmonger, now shuttered, on the Upper West Side.

The guy behind the counter had a girlfriend who worked the Continental Airlines route from Newark to Honolulu. This blessed woman, whose name I never learned, brought back inamona, a paste made from the roasted, crushed hearts of kukui nuts, and poké mix: careful proportions of alaea salt (stained red by volcanic clay), dried limu (seaweed native to the islands) and chile.

A tip of the ingredients over cubes of raw ahi, and time for the flavors to relax into each other: This was all that was required. The fishmonger offered the poké in plastic tubs, without ceremony, just as I had always known it in Honolulu, where I grew up and where some of the best poké is sold at a liquor store, Tamura’s.

Then, a few years back, poké started appearing on stray restaurant menus, sometimes identified as Hawaiian crudo or ceviche. (In Hawaiian, poké means “to cut crosswise in pieces.”) Now, almost all at once, Manhattan is home to three restaurants devoted to poké, in addition to a chef dealing poké out of a coffee shop that doubles as a karaoke bar.

The first to open, in October, was Sons of Thunder in Murray Hill. It is also the best.

The fish (ahi or salmon) is beautifully fresh and well cut, in hunks large enough to give a sense of plushness on the tongue. These may arrive under a gloss of shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) and sesame oil, with tracks of alaea salt and hijiki (seaweed), subtle and as essential as ligatures. Or a chile aioli whose slow-burn heat hums in the mouth without igniting it.

Elsewhere in town, poké is typically heaped on a stark bed of rice. Here, each bowl ($7.50 to $10.75) is a terrarium of mesclun greens and seaweed salad, offsetting the richness of the fish, with a humbler cushion of rice half-hidden below. Elsewhere, I also found the white rice too clumpy, the brown rice too dry; at Sons of Thunder, both are commendably fluffy. Extras like crispy shards of garlic or a tinsel of nori add textural interest, but you don’t need them.

There is tako (octopus) poké, too, tender with just a touch of chewiness, as well as versions made with tofu or golden beets, which I thought sacrilegious until I tasted them. I still do not understand the miracle.

Then again, James Kim, who shares duties in the kitchen with his younger brother, John, was once a pastor. (The restaurant’s name comes from the troublemaker apostles James and John, whom Jesus called “sons of thunder.”) The Kims are from Queens but have roots in Hawaii; their grandparents emigrated there from South Korea.

The surfboard on the wall is James’, on leave from Lido Beach on Long Island. In the back is a dining room with a pretty skylight and little adornment beyond two large prints by the surf photographer Brian Bielmann, of tow-in boats at Teahupoo, in Tahiti, one of the world’s great breaks, and of tiny riders in a long peel of blue.

Pokéworks, which opened in January near Herald Square, is the first of a planned chain. (Another outlet is set to open in March in Mountain View, California, not far from Google headquarters.) The Manhattan location follows the assembly-line model, which occasionally results in skewed ratios, like an overdose of alaea salt in an otherwise appealing bowl of ahi with rust-red frills of ogo (seaweed).

The menu ($10.50 to $12.95) is divided between house-composed “signature works” and a vertiginous list of build-it-yourself options, not all self-explanatory. This may exacerbate the discouraging line, which at peak lunch hour coils inside the narrow space and tumbles outside, almost rivaling the one at the nearby Chick-fil-A.

The only place to sit is squashed on a stool at a brief counter, with customers-in-waiting breathing down your neck. Still, it is a relief in Midtown to be able to eat a light, healthy lunch that has genuine flavor and texture and doesn’t feel like a sacrifice.

Kevin Hsu, one of the owners and a native Californian, was inspired by the poké he ate on trips to Hawaii. But the recipes here go further afield, including chicken cooked sous-vide and slurred with a ginger-scallion sauce, a nod to Hainanese chicken; tofu dashed with Korean gochujang; and poké burritos.

I don’t like my poké too crowded. So I preferred the Umami Classic, a straightforward sum of ahi, sesame oil and shoyu bolstered by a house-made dashi stock, over rice.

A third contender, Wisefish Poké in Chelsea, is so new — it opened at the end of January — I can offer only first impressions.

The room is too skinny to comfortably fit the poké pilgrims already thronging here, but it’s lovely, more personal in feel than franchisable, outfitted in exposed brick, mosaic tile and a communal table with a stripe of succulents down the center. Bowl options ($7.95 to $13.95) include a demure snack size, which makes sense to me, since in Hawaii poké is often an appetizer or side dish.

I tried all the “house favorites” on the menu, tosses of ahi, salmon or tofu with different sauces and toppings, assembled to order with remarkable good cheer; the owners, Drew Crane and Bryan Cowan, have got the aloha spirit part right. I wished for a little less rice and a little more fish, and some oomph. But the Hawaii Style, ahi shining with shoyu and sesame oil, earned its name.

Meanwhile, with less fanfare, a couple of vendors have been selling poké at outdoor markets: PokéOno, run by Andrew Danieli and Deborah Chung, who plan to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant this year, and East Coast Poké, started by Brooklyn-born Alfred DiMartini, a former line cook at Lupa and Bouley.

Since November, DiMartini has been working out of the Coffee Foundry in Greenwich Village. Ostensibly he serves poké Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., but his shipments of fish from Hawaii don’t always arrive or meet his standards, so it’s safer to call ahead.

He makes fine, honest poké, without too many complications: bowls of ahi ($12) steeped in shoyu, sesame oil, alaea salt and wakame or sriracha aioli. A staccato of black and white sesame seeds goes on top; below, sticky rice laced with rice vinegar and crushed pineapple (but not too much).

At the bottom of the menu is Spam musubi, the blushing pink canned-meat product pressed between slabs of rice. In Hawaii, this, too, is beloved. I’m still waiting for it to hit the big time.

Sons of Thunder

204 E. 38th St. (Third Avenue), Murray Hill; 646-863-2212; sonsofthunder.com

Recommended: Ahi poké; salmon poké; tako poké; tofu poké; golden-beet poké.

Drinks and wine: Beer and wine.

Prices: Poké, $6.50 to $10.75; hot dogs, soft-serve and shakes, $3.50 to $5.95; no American Express.

Open: Monday to Saturday for lunch and dinner.

Reservations: Not accepted.

Wheelchair access: Entrance is two steps up from the sidewalk. Restroom is spacious and equipped with handrail.

Pokéworks

63 W. 37th St. (Avenue of the Americas), Herald Square/Garment District; 212-575-8881; pokeworks.com

Recommended: Umami classic poké; spicy ahi poké.

Drinks and wine: No liquor license.