The Low-key Poke Joint

Set up of the restaurant is cute but its a very tight space.
They have a few tables set up with chairs long the walls. but really if those were chairs along the wall were filled with people there would be barely any room to leave without bumping into at least 1 person.
BooTea Rice= rice with flavor tea? I really have no idea. but its slightly green and I read that the hint of tea is suppose to go well with the fish.
They ran out of several proteins such as yellowtail :((((. Some of the pieces I had were very chewy. and the cut were kinda too long and big for my liking. I like to have cube size cuts cause its the right amount of fish to eat with the rice and crab meat.
They also weigh your protein before moving onto the next step.
They also give very little avocado even though you pay an extra $ 1 for it. Also very little crab meat.
Some unique things they had to offer were corn and hot cheetos to add to your poke. Also if you want to go light or heavy on your sauce. I love extra sauce!
Overall, it was okay.

Omg this place is so much…
So much sauces
So much condiments
So much choices !!
The price, eh it’s pretty fair. Considering the portion of seafood you’ll be receiving!
You come in, and wowwww. This place is nice? Am I still in little Saigon? So sleek and clean here. Digging the outdoorsy vibe.
Anyways, this is like every other poke place now a days. Reg is three choices of protein and large is five. Five is so much! Damn. You’ll be straight with a regular .
I was a little disappointed with the fact they didn’t have albacore! And I read they had yellowtail but not when I was there… Ugh. My two favorite basic fish yo!
Either way! This place stands out from the other poke place though… Why? They offer so much accessories to your bowl! From Parmesan cheese (ew btw) to hot Cheetos! Wowwww why so random! Hahah but I do enjoy the fried garlic, the dried seaweed, along with the regular seaweed! Omg so delicious. And boyyyy ! The way they present it! So damn pleasing!
If I’m ever craving poke, I’ll def Come back!

The Low-​Key Poke Joint is a clean and modern place that offers delicious poke bowls with generous portions.
Pros
Service: the workers welcomed you as soon as you walked in. They were also attentive and informative throughout the ordering process. Tommy and Mai were super awesome with the ordering process!
Salmon and Tuna: the huge cubes of fish was delicious but they could have done a more cleaner job on cutting the fish since some of the salmon had the membrane on.
Toppings and side: this place offers a wide range of toppings and sides with some unique choices such as the raw quail egg and hot Cheetos crumbs.
Portions and prices: huge portions for super low prices compared to the competition. $ 8.99 for regular (3 scoops) and $ 10.99 for large (5 scoops).

Love this place! The poke bowls are super tasty.
I got a large and the portions are pretty good, i was stuffed. You get 5 scoops and i got spicy tuna and all the fish stuff. Got most of the add ons and some garlic sprinkle to taste.
My partner got the bootea rice, that was also delicious! Next time I’m getting the bootea rice too.
The berry splash drink was super refreshing too. It hella quenched my thirst! :)
I will definitely be coming back here again. #pokebowlsFTW

I was recommended to go here by a family member. The presentation and the décor of this place is really nice. They have more sauces to choose from and more toppings such as hot Cheetos and corn. The flavors aren’t so great tho. And their amount of fish they give isn’t that great. The way they lay it out in your bowl isn’t even and you don’t get everyone all in one bite.
Ima stick to pokinometry where they
Give you an even amount of everything and their sauce is super delicious!

Much like the other poke places, they have your typical choices for the fish. What they try to do different here is offer a wider selection of toppings and event a different flavor of rice to switch things up. It’s definitely not «Low-​Key» at this joint anymore since I came late during the week and the place was still packed and a lengthy line after 9pm! The people of OC need their poke at all hours of day, apparently.
The portion is okay, nothing more or less than what you pay for at about $ 9 for a regular sized bowl. They COULD give a little more fish to be honest, but they try to make up for it in the topping and sides department. Bootea Rice is pretty good with a mild tea flavor to go with the fish. CAUTION: the LAVA Sauce is spicyyyyyyyyy! And the Shoyu-​the-​way sauce is too sweet by itself… so what’s the solution? Ask them for the shoyu sauce as the base, then however many drizzles of the Lava you would be able to handle. If not, your tongue will be on fire. Otherwise, your only other spicy options are mayo-​based and that generally covers up the taste of everything else :(Guac is extra but everything else looks to be free!
My best tip to this place though… find a way to deal with the noise-​cancelling glass that’s between the servers and customers. It’s SO hard to hear what they’re saying without having to constantly ask them to repeat the question/​answer. It doesn’t help that you’ve got a lively/​chatty crowd lining up behind and music playing as well. This should speed up the wait time for all your customers too.

Do your chain hang low, do your poke wobble to the flo…
Well okay maybe that didn’t quite make sense, but low key poke joint isn’t so low key. In fact, this place is smack dab in the busy plaza. They should of put the entrance in the back like Bordards if they wanted to keep it low key.
Anyways, the bowl size is small but the cuts of poke are larger than other places. The fish taste fresh and don’t have a lot of sinew. There’s a plethora of options (many to which they run out of) and some that are a bit out of the box like hot Cheetos crumbs.
The only thing I dislike is the fan they put inside. Do they realize it’s hot air that’s blowing rather than cold? Unless they’re trying to bake their fish via fan. Don’t let this worry you, their fish is cold. Their customer service is also spotty, avocado is an extra charge, boo and seating outside is minimal to like 2 tables. Haha okay I guess there’s a couple things I dislike, but this won’t deter me away from this place, just yet.

FYI: A majority if these good reviews are made in exchange for an ice cream macaron sandwiches. BRIBE MUCH? Make sure to read reviews thoroughly as it seems like high schoolers are the ones hype’ing this place up… all for a free $ 3 item.
Excuse me, but a cool name and appealing aesthetics cannot cover up the fact that they serve bad fish!
This place opened mid December. I started coming here in January to let the new hype crowd die down a bit.
I appreciate simple food, and first I thought the excessive variety of sauces and unconventional poke toppings would be a little gimmicky — but after my 1^st visit, I became a fan. Mostly, because its a lot closer to home than Pokenometry. I literally came here 3 times within the same week of first trying it. They were out of Uni Pasta for about 1 ½ weeks.
Bowls are large, regardless of which size you go with. Spring salad is good, and so are the dressings. The bootea rice is good and has a subtle flavor, similar to what you get in banana leaf wrapped rice.
The restaurant is a small place that seats no more than 20 or 30 people max. Because of this, I started to opt to take my orders to go.
The Uni Pasta was finally available late January, so I put an order in for that, along with a poke bowl. This is where it all goes wrong.
UNI PASTA: Not worth $ 15! If anything it should be no more than $ 8 or 9 — and that’s being generous. This dish should also be renamed «Truffle Garlic Alfredo» garnished with Uni. The Uni isn’t present in the dish, aside from the 1 sac on top. Chunks of garlic was more present than the Uni! Also, I never knew Truffle Oil could be a bad thing — they literally overdid it with the Truffle Oil! They literally need to redo this dish. For $ 15 you’re literally only getting garlic and truffle oil! If you want noodles, go next door to Garlic & Chives for a small order of garlic noodles for $ 3!
POKE BOWLS: I have no idea what happened with the poke bowls I was initially impressed with — this time the rice was clumpy and sticky and the biggest thing — THE FISH WAS SOOO BAD! One of the most essential thing about raw fish aside from quality fish, is good knife skills! The cuts of fish were so jagged and choppy, it makes the texture in your mouth feel like you’re eating food someone else ate and spit out. ON TOP OF HORRIBLE KNIFE SKILLS, THE FISH CUTS WERE DISGUSTING! Super sinew-​y and tough to bite into and it had fatty pieces! As in, the fatty cuts they use for their Fried Salmon Belly. DISGUSTING! I literally had to throw away the entire bowl.
I was really turned off with all of the above. However, this week I was craving poke and decided to give them 1 more chance — maybe they were just having an off day the last time? NOPE, STILL BAD!
They changed their eye-​catching clear bowls to black bowls. Again — the fish is just as DISGUSTING. This time, even the tuna had fatty brown pieces! Nope, nope, nope! NEVER AGAIN!
The only thing good about this place is the $ 2 Taro Chips. Make sure you look inside the bag first though, last time I only got 10 chips and didnt realize it until I opened it at home.
Also, the sauces are actually good here. I let them toss the fish in the Shoyu The Way Sauce, but I like to dip or sauce my fish as I eat with the more flavorful sauces. If you ask for sauce (s) on the side, be prepared to be given a death-​glare. I think asking for sauces on the side takes up less time than handing customers samples of each and waiting for them to decide on which sauce to get. What’s up with the attitude?! The guy cashier has always been really nice, though.
All in all… this place is forever crossed off in my books. They cemented it on themselves. You cannot be a poke restaurant and have bad cuts and bad quality of fish!!!
(26÷100; 2016)

So many topping options I love it! The flavor options are pretty bomb also. The only downfall which a lot of people are saying is that the amount of fish they give you is so little. Initially I thought it was little but I made it work and I was pretty full at the end. (I got a regular). I’ve had other poke places like pokinometry and I’ve never finished my bowl because they gave too much fish. You know when you eat too much of something it gets tiring and then you lose your appetite. It’s not like that for me at low key.
This was what I got in my bowl
The Buddha rice
Spicy tuna
Spicy salmon
Yellowtail
A mix is shoyu and srichacha sauce
And then all the toppings
I am a little allergic to fish so my throat starting to get a little raspy but it was worth it lol.
I know there are soooo many poke spots popping up in OC but low key is in a great location. Definitely try it out and then go get some boba at 85 or lollicup :)

Came in on a whim while I was in the area.
Didn’t really expect much, because so many poke places have been popping up lately. To my surprise, when I arrived here this place definitely exceeded my expectations. The décor looked amazing and there was plenty of seating.
The process of food ordering was like chipotle, order your choices of fish, choose between a bed of rice or salad and add as many toppings as you’d like. Avacado is an extra $ 1 (FYI) The bootea rice was Delish! & Especially the fresh cut fish! You can ask for a sample of the boo tea rice too, so you know what you’re getting. The soda here are cans, but they do have other drinks as well.
Workers were really nice here too. I would be back for the bootea rice, it’s different but in a good way.

Atmosphere: small place with a little more than a handful of tables, super cute chic décor
Ordered items: two large poke bowls
I LOOOOOOVVVEE this place. We walked in and were greeted instantly by the amazingly nice staff. We were asked if we had been prior and since we were not we were walked through everything, samples included. I started off with their blue rice and choose all 5 scoops to be ahi, then moved forward to the sauces which were perfectly spicy and sweet. Unlike other poke places they offer in my opinion better choices to jam pack on your one of a kind bowl, such as hot Cheetos and quail eggs and of corse not limited to the original extras like crab meat, avocado and etc. Just as we were about to sit down and enjoy our bowls we were offered a berry/​mango mix drink on the house curiosity of the great staff, which was really sweet just like the drink. All in all the bowl was just the right amount of everything, I thought the fish was excellent quality, the way everything was mixed together had a great spicy mouth watering taste. I can’t wait to go back for more!

This place was pretty whack. Hate to be a hater like that but I just wasn’t impressed. It’s pokinometry style where you select a base, protein then pile different things on and they mix it up. They try to «upgrade» that idea by having cool mix ins like crushed hot cheetos and onion strings but they don’t really add much to your bowl. I wasn’t fond of their creamy siraccha sauce (it was really bland) and didn’t see the point in adding salad dressing on top of that (even though I did and usually love sesame dressing).
So bottom line I think it’s a solid idea, but all these ideas they thought of to make it better don’t make it anything other than a mess of tastes that don’t mesh. I loved the décor though, very UN-​lowkey I thought which is funny.

Poke bowl is the new craze nowadays. Poke joints are popping up everywhere, but not everyone can execute it nicely like Low Key Poke.
For $ 8.99, I usually get a regular bowl with bootea rice. It comes with 3 scoops of meat and avocado ($ 1 extra). You are looking to pay about $ 10 out-​the-​door, which is a-​okay! ‘Shoyu the way’ is my choice of sauce. It’s sweet and savory, a hint of teriyaki.
A lot have changed since they first opened. They used to have ‘wasabioli’ sauce, but took it off the menu. I think when eating poke, spicy sauce is needed besides the wasabi. The ‘lava’ sauce is not all that spicy IMO (the spiciest sauce they have right now. Also, they used to have corn horchata drink, but no longer since it wasn’t a big hit with customers.
— Taro chips are good to snack on.
— Restroom is clean.
— Macaron ice cream sold here.
— Salmon pork belly is okay.
— Friendly and suggestive staff.
— Has hot cheetos topping.
— Parking is horrible in this plaza.

Been wanting to try this place and finally did last week.
Great bowl of poke. I love that it’s just one flat price (R or L) and then you can add or omit as many toppings as you want. I was worried the quality of the sashimi or the ingredients would be bad since they do one flat price all around. I was wrong.
I had salmon and yellowtail with the shoyu sauce and it was great! I was a little skeptical of the bootea rice but it’s super compatible with the fish and toppings. Slightly sweet, very subtle green tea flavor. My man had his sashimi marinated in the jalapeño sauce with hot cheetos on top and that combo was really good too! We snarfed our bowls down and made a note to come back again soon.
The names for all the rice flavors and sauces are really corny… SHOYU THE WAY
Now time for me to really turn into a nit-​picky jerk:
I don’t know if it’s because Low Key Poke Joint is relatively new, but it seemed super unorganized in there. The cashiers/​servers had jittery over-​enthusiastic teenage energy. The place is also quite small, so as customers moved down the line in assembly-​line style (like Chipotle) to build their own bowls, the servers had to shout over one another to speak to the customers. It was like a yelling match. Also the chandelier hanging above the assembly line perfectly covered the menu on the wall behind the servers. I had to keep ducking to look at the menu. Just sayin.
I have a feeling though, that as this restaurant gains popularity and grows, they’ll need to remodel and expand too.
All-​in-​all, great ingredients and good bang for your buck!

Rating 3.5
I liked this place, however my GF wasn’t that big of a fan. They have exceptional customer service, and were very friendly and helpful in determining what to order. They have different rice/​sauces here than the other poke places, which i thought was really nice. They have a Bootea rice which is Jasmine rice. I ordered the large Poke bowl for $ 10.99 which comes with five scoops of fish. Its the same assembly line style poke like Pokinometry, Poke dot, and all the other poke places, and have the same basic toppings (crab, seaweed salad, onions, cucumbers, etc).
All in all the food here was good, customer service was amazing. I still feel like these places just drench the fish in sauce to mask the flavor, but it still taste good. The more Poke places i go to, the more i realize how similar most of them are in quality/​style. Honestly my favorite Poke place is still Northshore or Fins, I feel like their fish is higher quality and taste a lot better, i’d recommend going there if you are looking for good Poke.

Yet another poke spot, but in bolsa.
Searched Unilocal for some poke bc I was in the area for work. Was actually surprised this place has so many reviews yet I’ve never heard about it. Guess my Unilocal game is weak since I’m on a new diet.
Anyway, same concept as all the other spots except they have way more options for toppings. Avocado is and extra $ 1 and they have an option of quail egg as well for an extra $ 1, which of course I got. It’s probably only for picture purposes because it didn’t change the taste for anything. Another interesting thing they offer are toppings, which consists of mainly crunchy things like fried onions and even hot Cheetos. I particularly didn’t think this was a good idea because it added a strange crunchy texture which had me second guessing if I chewed on a quail egg shell.
Overall it is one of the more decent ones and reasonably priced at $ 8.99 for a regular (3) or large $ 10.99 (5). I also like how they give you the option of drenching sauce and ask how heavy you want it. Most of the other poke places I’ve been to have super dry salads because they’re super stinge on the sauce. Another plus is that they actually use a wide container so I can actually eat without having everything fall out because it’s always stacked so high.
They also have a promotion going on $ 1.50 for fried salmon belly which is pretty good but they should include a dipping sauce.

Mmm yum! This review is strictly for the food. I wasn’t the one who picked up the to-​go order and I have never set foot into the establishment. I cannot say how the service was or what the place looks like.
My awesome bf surprised me with a poke bowl for lunch :’) It was really good! He got the one with 3 scoops of meat for me: 2 salmon and 1 tuna. The fish was good. I like that their onions were cooked well and did not burn. For toppings, you can get an unlimited amount from choices like imitation crab meat, seaweed salad, sesame seeds, green onions, fried onions, ginger, etc. Avocado is available but at an additional charge, I think. Their serving portion is just right. Many previous reviewers complained they don’t give enough meat, which is pretty average with the new poke places opening up recently.
What I liked was the rice, which is very unusual. I do not eat a lot of rice. I usually never finish my rice. I absolutely hate businesses who load up on rice and skimp out on the meat. I think Low-​key makes their rice specially with some kind of tea and makes it taste really good. I got the regular soy sauce, but the bowl definitely tasted like a Vietnamese version of Hawaiian food (esp with the fried onions LOL).
I’ll be back :)

I really want to give 3.5 stars. Unfortunately the more poke places I try out, the more I learn what places actually have good poke.
Their service is straight up 5 stars! Nicest people I’ve ever met in any poke place. But to be honest, the food is just average. Also menu items/​names just seems kinda gimmicky. Like the quality/​taste doesn’t quite live up to its unique names. The bootea rice is cute and interesting. But that’s all. The number of toppings available is impressive, but a bit overwhelming. I just find that poke tastes the best when its simple. Like hot cheetos? Is that really a good idea? Ehhh.
I don’t know if I just go out to eat too much but the whole hipster vibe interior is starting to get a little boring & old. The place is clean & organized, don’t get me wrong. But there wasn’t really a wow factor for me when eating here. It was TOO basic, yaknowwhatimeaaan.
They do have the same ice cream macaron sandwiches that boiling point has? Idk, I don’t see myself coming back here really. Sorry, there’s just too many other poke places now.

OVERHYPED FOR A POKE PLACE
Sorry but this seems to be an on going trend in OC for restaurants to take something simple to make and serve it in a really trendy looking restaurant (attracting the young college age crowd) that you would Instagram and Snapchat to your friends (I’m looking at you Nudo Nudo). Where the restaurant interior design looks better than the actual quality of the food.
As someone that has real poke in Hawaii on many occasions this place fell flat even in comparison to LA poke places. At one point I ate poke as one of my daily meals 5 days in a row so I think it’s safe to say I know my poke.
I ordered a regular ($ 8.99) and it comes with 3 scoops of fish. It is honestly more like 3 large bites of fish. They give you very little fish compared to Calipoke, Uroko, and even Pokinometry. Honestly, if I didn’t pack my bowl with sides, I would be starving. The bowl was around 75% rice, 15% sides (depending on how many you add), and 10% actual poke.
For fish, I ordered tuna, salmon, and yellowtail with the Bootea rice. Fish tasted relatively fresh and I didn’t get food poisoning. The sides I had were imitation crab meat, seaweed salad, masago, fried garlic, onions, seaweed, guacamole, corn, and garlic slaw. If you put a lot of sides and toppings on your poke gets buried underneath and you have to dig it out. I ended up picking the wasabioli sauce and thought it was pretty mild for a wasabi based sauce. However, I have a really high wasabi tolerance.
Service was good. Simple Chipotle style ordering. Parking is easy. It’s in the same plaza as 85C, Garlic & Chives, Brodard, Phở Pasteur, and the soon to open Honeymee.
Probably won’t come back since I can get better bang for you buck poke elsewhere.

What a strange name for a poke place hahaa. It’s in the same plaza as 85 degrees, Garlic and Chives, and Lollicup so parking can be a pain! My thoughts:
1. Bootea rice: green tea infused rice! Very tasty and it had a good texture! Yum!
2. Salmon and tuna were good — my only complaint is that the salmon had so much skin on it!!! My biggest fear/​pet peeve hmph.
3. I picked shoyu for my sauce. A little on the bland side but I think it’s because they didn’t massage the fish in it long enough.
4. The avocado here was mashed to the max and it was very black… I’ve never seen this at poke places so thumbs down for that. I know if avo is exposed to air then it isn’t as green but other poke places don’t seem to have this problem!
5. SEAWEED SALAD HERE! YUMMMMY! No extra charge for toppings either!
6. I didn’t see truffle oil here??? False advertisement by Unilocalers?
7. Loved the clear bowls here! Makes it look clean and fresh
8. Super friendly workers