Meaning & use
poke bowl
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A dish of diced raw fish, usually tuna, served over rice with vegetables and a savory sauce, inspired by Hawaiian cooking.
Grammar: Countable: order a poke bowl, two poke bowls.
Patterns
- a poke bowl with something
- poke bowl for lunch
I ordered a poke bowl with salmon, avocado and seaweed.
The new cafe near the office sells a vegetarian poke bowl made with tofu.
We shared two poke bowls on the beach.
Word forms
| plural | poke bowls |
|---|
Common combinations
- order a poke bowl
- Let's order a poke bowl for lunch.
- tuna poke bowl
- A tuna poke bowl is the most popular choice here.
- build your own poke bowl
- You can build your own poke bowl at the counter.
- poke bowl restaurant
- A poke bowl restaurant opened on our street last spring.
- vegan poke bowl
- She makes a vegan poke bowl with mango instead of fish.
Synonyms and how they differ
- rice bowl
- Rice bowl is a broader term for any dish served in a bowl over rice, while a poke bowl usually has diced raw fish.
- sushi bowl
- Sushi bowl often uses vinegared rice and Japanese-style toppings, whereas a poke bowl follows a Hawaiian style of seasoning.
- chirashi
- Chirashi is a Japanese dish of sliced fish over sushi rice, so it is similar but has a different origin and seasoning.
Word family
Commonly confused: poke bowl or poke?
poke bowl vs poke
The English verb poke means to jab with a finger or stick and rhymes with smoke; the Hawaiian poke is said with two syllables.
Practice
What is usually the main ingredient of a traditional poke bowl?
Choose one answer.
A poke bowl is built around cubes of raw fish, often tuna, served over rice. The other options are not part of the dish.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “poke bowl”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.