My First Poke Experience At The Fish Bowl

Having read about poke restaurants in Malaysia some time ago, I was most curious to try the poke at Malaysia’s first poke restaurant, The Fish Bowl. There are quite a number of poke restaurants mushrooming up in every neighbourhood now but The Fish Bowl was THE pioneer as far as poke in Malaysia is concerned. I visited their Plaza Arkadia outlet which has photos of scammers pasted on their entrance. That made me wonder how on earth people can scam a restaurant which you have to pay first before you eat but I am sure these are experienced scammers and anything is possible if you have the mind of a scammer.

You can refer to the menu above the cashier/preparation area or look at the sheet of paper on every table. Pencils are provided so you can tick what you want in your poke bowl. To begin with, decide on which poke bowl you want – there are basic and premium bowls. The basic ones are priced at RM18.90 – Shoyu Salmon Bowl, Zesty Bowl, Spicy Tuna Bowl and Salad Bowl (you have to be a vegetarian to choose the salad bowl because who can pass up salmon?).

I chose the Shoyu Salmon Bowl but close second choice would have been the Zesty Bowl as that one has Kaffir Lime Salmon. The Shoyu Salmon Bowl has rice (choose between white or brown rice, you can also have quinoa or pesto rice at a surcharge), Greens, Shoyu Salmon, Cucumber, Pineapples, Corns, Onions, Funkake, Green Onion, Seaweed Flakes, Fish Roe and Gar Gar Sauce (absolutely never heard of that last one but is is actually Garlic Sauce).

After choosing the brown rice, I ticked my 2 sauces – lime aoioli and herby lime. This was followed by 4 sides – cherry tomatoes, onions, shallots and seaweed salad. You can add on premium ingredients for an extra RM2.90 such as avocado, parmesan crisps, poached egg, guacamole and salmon skin. They give you unlimited toppings which is just great as you can choose up to 13 toppings! I went a bit wild with this one and chose sesame seeds, fried shallots (I can never get enough of shallots), seaweed flakes, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, fish roe and chia seeds.

All the ingredients look so fresh and when I collected my bowl at the end of the prep counter, my first thought was this looks like the must-have “yee sang” during Chinese New Year except this one is customised so you can pick only the stuff you like and leave out the stuff you don’t like pickled vegetables.

I mixed everything together and thankfully the bowl is big enough so nothing spills out. There’s a fantastic combination of taste and textures. Poke bowls are the best option until the next Chinese New Year if you miss your “yee sang”. I like what The Fish Bowl offers and won’t hesitate recommending to anyone who is looking for a good poke restaurant. Hopefully there will be more The Fish Bowl outlets opening soon as the ones that are currently open are quite far from me.