Poke One

 

Located at 4835 West Wendover Avenue in Jamestown, Poke One offers poke and ramen for lunch and dinner. It is open from 11 to 9 on weekdays and 11:30 to 9 on weekends. Online ordering is available.

 

Poke-and-ramen seems to be the High Point area’s latest restaurant trend, and while Poke One loses some of the novelty by not getting there first, it otherwise seems poised to hold its own. Housed in the former Rockaway Eatery location, it’s clean, colorful, and spacious. The menu boasts a few Japanese apps (edamame, Takoyaki, shumai, and, oddly enough, fries) as well as milk and fruit teas, but poke (in bowl or burrito form) and ramen are the core offerings. There are about a half-dozen varieties of each, and you can also build your own of the former. Poke One wisely supplies paper menus that can be filled out to make BYO ordering efficient and convenient.

 

For our first visit, my wife and I each got a build your own poke bowl and a milk tea (taro and strawberry, respectively). Our orders were completed very quickly, and the brightly colored bowls looked amazing. Fortunately, the flavors matched the presentation. I went with a mixture of hot (spicy salmon, spicy mayo), sour (pickled ginger, pickled radish), and sweet (mango). Add to that some cucumber for refreshment, and the bowl was nicely balanced. The ingredients were also fresh, and they don’t skimp on quantity here. The tea was rather sweet, however. Next time, I’ll go with a classic rather than a fruit flavor.

 

What sets Poke One apart from other local options is the competitive pricing. At $11.95 for a poke bowl and $5.70 for a milk tea with bubbles, Poke One is cheaper than either Poke Dream or Ninja Café/Kung Fu Tea.

 

Poke One may not be an innovator, but being able to provide fresh, tasty food quickly makes it a welcome addition nevertheless.