Fish in Chips
Lark St. Poke Bar brings recently trendy diced fish dining trope to Albany
Lark St. Poke Bar brings recently trendy diced fish dining trope to Albany.
Lark St. Poke Bar is a near-carbon copy of Poke Junction opened in Palmdale, north of Los Angeles, last year by bi-coastal restaurapreneur Will Phan. The Palmdale and Albany locations share industrial interiors — white subway tiles, exposed brick, caged bulbs, a fishbone logo and black barstools under high-top counters — and the teen humor of “Let Me Poké You” is omnipresent on hashtags, walls and staff T’s.
Lest you missed Hawaiian poke (poh-keh) — sometimes stylized as poké to aid pronunciation — as the juggernaut dining trend of 2016, the diced raw fish dish first hit the mainland in the 1970s and, since the early 2010s, the explosion of fast-casual poke bars has made poke as familiar to table talk as sushi.
While the standard Hawaiian versions found in grocery stores and gas stations are typically pre-marinated tuna and octopus, mainland poke found its niche as endlessly customizable rice-and-salad bowls with fast-casual counter-style service.
The choices of rice, vegetable, raw fish (or no fish) and sauces from sweet wasabi ponzu to sriracha mayo and gluten-free soy added on the go accommodates today’s kaleidoscopic dietary restrictions and makes it perfect for office snacking.
The Capital Region’s first taste of poke came from Hooked, the Latham fishmonger, and Bespoki Bowl in Troy, whose menu, in a nod to the many Asian influences on Hawaiian cuisine, features Korean dishes and the classic Hawaiian plate lunch. This means the Lastyle, poke-focused Lark St. Poke Bar, open since June, is an area first.
Phan is the energetic former owner of Bangkok Bistro in Colonie, who bought Elda’s on Lark in 2013, turning it into the late-night restaurant-lounge LAX, where blue drinks and high-decibel music are popular with the demographic that can handle it. An entrance sign reminds patrons of the dress code: No wife-beaters, sagging pants, hoods up, weapons or bad attitudes.
LAX may not be your scene, but Lark St. Poke Bar should be.
Phan carved the poke bar’s impressively air-conditioned space out of the LAX lounge, separating the businesses with an interior retractable garage door (painted with massive angel wings for Instagram selfies) that can be opened late night for overflow. It means in the early evening you’ll hear the pulsing music and
trivia DJ next door, and the Friday night poke bowl special includes a mixed drink at LAX. With wildly different hours (the poke bar closes at 9 p.m. while LAX parties on until 2 a.m.), few will care.
Servers are friendly; overhead chalkboards take the uninitiated through a four-step process to build custom bowls. Preset house creations include poke tacos with crunchy shells, creamy avocado and your choice of fresh ahi tuna or salmon; a Lark St. Bowl with spicy shrimp and crab seafood salad contains no raw fish, and crisp, battered shrimp positioned upright in the tempura bowl are steadied by heaped rice and shiny edamame decorated with purple radish, nori, eel sauce and spicy mayo.
It’s easy to sum up: Counters are clean, the air cold and fish pristine — critical where raw fish is concerned. Perfect sticky white or brown rice is scooped from two huge rice steamers with offers of rice seasoning — a furikake-style house blend of sea salt, shredded nori and sesame seeds. Or patrons can go half and half with fresh salad leaves, crisp wonton chips or zoodles (zucchini noodles) spiralized daily.
There’s nominal difference between a tofu vegan’s delight and a gluten-free bowl; corn, almonds and seared shishito peppers are assigned to the former, alfalfa and gluten-free soy to the latter, but they are popular: Phan estimates 40 percent of his customer base is vegan. Medium or large plastic bowls can be topped with finely chopped raw spicy tuna, silky cubed salmon and bright ahi tuna — all impeccably fresh — with toppings from seaweed salad to cilantro, and finally crisp garlic, tobiko or seeds for added crunch. As you make your way down the line you can decide if it’s time for cold sake and Sapporo, matcha tea or a fountain soda. It’s fast-food service: Have it your way.
We watch the chosen protein, toppings and sauce of a 518 Sushi Burrito disappear on a tray into the rear kitchen and return as an arresting maki roll coated in Dayglo red crushed Hot Cheetos. I take it at face value as Phan’s stated “upstate twist” until I read about last year’s Flamin’ Hot Cheetos sushi burrito at the Low-key Poke Joint in Garden Grove, Calif. I guess there are no new ideas. For those who love the crunch of furikake rice and heat of togarashi, the use of crushed hot Cheetos for crunch and heat is weirdly good.
There are a few non-poke snacks, including musubi — the blocky Hawaiian handheld
Spam snack over rice — sold premade and boxed. Ours, seemingly made some hours earlier, was unimpressive, the rice too hard. And while desserts of fried green tea or vanilla ice cream served with whipped cream and torched marshmallows are a happy ending, the mochi that should be pillow soft is a tough-skinned bust.
Phan has addressed two related Lark Street concerns — parking and takeout — by offering online ordering and a curbside walkout service where you call when close and they run it out to your car. He’s partnered with Grubhub, printed 20-percentoff discount cards (for first-time online orders) and stenciled an endearing description of poke across the front window for the uncertain to digest outside. After all the praise of Troy’s dining scene and Albany’s flourishing warehouse district, this is a welcome bright spot in Albany’s historic Center Square. Fitting somewhere between deconstructed sushi and custom salads, Lark St. Poke Bar is cool, clean and earnestly fresh.
A large poke bowl and Sapporo beer will cost around $20 before tip.