America’s Best Poke Is NOT in Hawaii – The Verdict Is In

I’ve been eating poke in Hawaii for over three decades. Born and raised on Oahu, I’ve watched this simple fisherman’s snack transform into a global phenomenon.

But here’s what’s got everyone talking lately – a California mountain town restaurant just got crowned America’s best poke spot by thousands of reviewers. Not Honolulu. Not Hilo.

Big Bear Lake, California.

And honestly? The controversy this sparked tells you everything you need to know about what’s really happening to our local food. Let’s dig into this mess.

When a Landlocked Mountain Town Claims the Crown

Tropicali sits at 6,750 feet elevation in Big Bear Lake, California – about as far from the ocean as you can get and still call yourself a poke restaurant.​

With over 4,000 Yelp reviews and a staggering 4.9-star rating, this place earned the title of America’s highest-ranked poke restaurant. They even snagged the number one restaurant spot in all of California back in 2019, regardless of cuisine or price point.​

Owner Michael Sterling Eaton built something wild up there. The entrance? A massive shark mouth that customers walk through. Inside, you’ll find digital kiosks for ordering, rusted iron cactuses on the summer patio, and employees who follow a handbook with “stylized conversations” to set the mood.

When customers ask where the fish comes from, every worker gives the exact same answer: “mystical mermaids”.​

The place moved to a bigger hilltop location in December 2024, complete with views of Big Bear Lake and ample patio space. Bowls run about $22 each – not cheap for a medium-sized portion.

They serve only ahi tuna with variations in sauces and toppings. The Tahiti bowl features a creamy coconut sauce that regulars describe as “addicting,” while the Kraken comes loaded with their signature toppings.​

But here’s where it gets interesting.

When the rankings hit the news, legendary Hawaiian chef Sam Choy didn’t hold back. He called the whole situation a “slap in the face”. And honestly, I get why he’s heated about it.​​

What Mainlanders Get Wrong About Poke Every Single Time

Real Hawaiian poke is stupid simple.

Cubed raw ahi. Maui onions. Limu (that’s Hawaiian seaweed, and it’s crucial). Shoyu. Sesame oil. Maybe some inamona (roasted kukui nut) or crushed macadamia nuts. Hawaiian sea salt. Green onions.

That’s it.

The fish should taste like the ocean. The limu adds this briny crunch that you can’t replicate with anything else. When I grab poke from Foodland or Tamura’s, I’m tasting the ahi first – everything else just supports that clean, fresh fish flavor.​

Mainland poke? Completely different animal.

They pile it high with mango chunks, pineapple, edamame, cucumber ribbons, crispy onions, spicy mayo, wasabi aioli, and avocado – basically turning it into a sushi salad. One Reddit user nailed it: “Mainland ‘poke’ is more like sashimi with poor marination, with sushi toppings piled into the dish like a sushi salad”.​

The missing ingredient that bothers locals most? Limu.

You can’t get fresh Hawaiian seaweed easily on the mainland, and that oceanic flavor just isn’t there. Some mainland spots use generic dried seaweed, but it’s not the same thing at all.​

I remember taking my cousin from Portland to get poke at a little spot in Kalihi. She kept asking where all the toppings were. “This is just… fish and sauce?”

Yeah. That’s the point.

The ahi was caught that morning, sold at the Honolulu Fish Auction by noon, and in our bowls by 3 PM. You don’t need seventeen toppings when your fish tastes like that.

Pro tip: If you see “poke bowls” advertised with photos showing more vegetables than fish, that’s your red flag. Real poke puts the ahi front and center, not buried under half a salad bar.

The Dirty Secret Nobody Talks About (Even in Hawaii)

Here’s what’ll blow your mind.

Most poke sold in Hawaii isn’t even from Hawaii.

The local fishing industry pushed for legislation in early 2025 (Senate Bill 129 and House Bill 534) requiring retailers to label where their raw ahi actually comes from. Why? Because they’re tired of watching imported, previously frozen fish get marketed as “fresh” or “locally made” just because someone cubed it in a Honolulu kitchen.

Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association, put it bluntly: “I think there’s a serious misconception in the consumer base in Hawaii that poke offered at retail is locally landed, and it’s not. It’s mostly imported”.​

Walk into Safeway on any Friday. Previously frozen poke? $8.99 per pound. “Fresh” poke? $18.99 per pound.​

Foodland sells theirs for around $13.99, often without clear labeling about whether it’s previously frozen. Times Supermarket marks its “PF” for previously frozen at $12.99. But none of them tells you where the ahi swam before it died.​

That imported tuna could come from African fisheries, get transshipped through Vietnam, then land in Hawaii labeled “made fresh daily”. It might’ve been frozen for years.​

Even worse? Much of it is “vitamin tuna” – pre-cubed ahi treated with carbon monoxide gas to keep the flesh red (a process banned in many countries) and injected with vitamin C, beet juice, and paprika.​

“Most of the ahi poke, previously frozen, sold at retail in Hawaii is that product,” Kingma said. “No one in Hawaii is doing that”.​

The price difference between local and imported ahi? About $10 per pound. At the Honolulu Fish Auction in early 2025, fresh bigeye tuna was going for $6.20 per pound and yellowfin for $5.68.​

But those prices fluctuate daily based on what the boats bring in.

Tamura’s Market switched to exclusively using ahi from the Honolulu Fish Auction in early 2024 after customers kept demanding truly local fish. Their seafood program manager, Shelly Ignacio, says regulars understand and appreciate that their poke prices change with auction prices.​

It means you’re getting the real deal.

So when mainlanders brag about their poke being “just as good” as Hawaii’s, they might actually be eating the same imported fish we’re getting at discount supermarkets.

The irony is thick enough to cut with a knife.

The Cultural Appropriation Elephant in the Room

Poke isn’t just food.

It’s tied to Native Hawaiian genealogy, traditional fishing practices, and centuries of cultural knowledge passed down through families.​

Back in 2018, a Chicago-based chain called Aloha Poke Co. trademarked the words “aloha” and “poke” – then started sending cease-and-desist letters to small businesses using those same words. Native Hawaiian-owned businesses rebranded out of fear of litigation.​

The rallying cry became “Aloha is not for sale”.​

Fast forward to summer 2024. Hawaiian Bros Island Grill (also not Native Hawaiian-owned) trademarked the phrase “aloha spirit”. Social media exploded. Native Hawaiians condemned it as continued commercialization and exploitation of their culture.​

Vicky Holt Takamine, chair of the Native Hawaiian Intellectual Property Rights Working Group, said it perfectly: “That’s part of appropriating cultural language or anybody’s language, saying, ‘I own this, and you cannot use it'”.​

The crazy part?

There’s almost no legal protection for Native Hawaiian cultural expressions at the state or federal levels. Companies can swoop in, trademark Hawaiian words that have been used for centuries, then sue actual Hawaiian businesses for using their own language.​

The poke industry itself has exploded on the mainland. Google searches for “poke bowls” increased 355% between summer 2015 and 2016. Los Angeles went from 12 poke locations in 2015 to over 200 in 2017.​

The U.S. poke shop industry revenue grew to $2.0 billion by 2024, expanding at 4.9% annually.​

That’s a lot of money being made off a Native Hawaiian dish. And most of it isn’t going to Native Hawaiian communities.

Why Hawaii Poke Still Hits Different (When It’s Real)

I’ve tried mainland poke in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland. Some of it is decent.

Some of it is… well, let’s just say they tried.

But even the good stuff doesn’t compare to standing at the poke counter at Foodland Farms at 5 PM, watching them scoop fresh shoyu ahi into a container while the sun sets over the Ko’olau mountains. The texture is different – that slight give when you bite into it, like butter that spent time in cold water.

The flavor is cleaner.

You taste the ocean, not seventeen different sauces competing for attention.

A Business Insider writer compared poke in Washington D.C. to poke in Hilo and concluded: “The Hawaii poke was simpler but tasted better to me since it wasn’t cluttered with toppings”.​

Reddit users who’ve lived in both places echo this constantly. One wrote: “Hawaii poke is hands down 10x better. The main difference is marination. In Hawaii, the fish is deeply marinated, and there are different flavors”.​

Another local living on the mainland admitted: “I’ve actually never had bad fish from a poke place on the mainland. I think what makes the poke here preferable to me is that it’s all about the fish and the marinade vs just a salad or rice topped with sashimi and fancy stuff”.​

The U.S. poke foods market is projected to grow by $5.2 billion between 2024 and 2029, with a 9.9% compound annual growth rate.​

New players keep entering the market – SushiSamba launched Poke Samba in Miami in October 2025. Poke Bar expanded its California production facility in July 2024 after FDA approval.​

But growth doesn’t equal authenticity.

And that’s what gets lost in all these rankings and Yelp reviews.

The Best Mainland Poke Spots (If You’re Stuck There)

Look, I’m not completely heartless. Sometimes you’re on the mainland, and you need a poke fix.

Some spots do it better than others.

Broken Mouth in downtown Los Angeles earned the title of best restaurant in America on Yelp at one point. Owner Tim Lee is a local Hawaii boy who brought the Korean homestyle food of Hawaii to LA.

They serve Spam musubi, teriyaki chicken, and what Hawaii residents call “local food” – that plate lunch style that’s different from Native Hawaiian food but still part of our culture. It’s takeaway only, no-frills, and the people who get it, get it.

Ali’i Hawaiian Grill in LA (formerly Ali’i Fish Co) gets praise from poke competition judges as “true Hawaiian poke” with incredibly fresh ingredients. That’s high praise coming from someone who judges poke competitions in San Diego.​

It’s Raw Poke Shop in San Diego is run by Hawaiians originally from Oahu. Heavy-handed rice scoops, melt-in-your-mouth fresh fish. One reviewer said it’s “the closest to being in Hawaii that you will experience” on the mainland.​

San Diego actually has a solid poke scene overall. The city hosted poke competitions in 2024, and locals there seem to understand the assignment better than most mainland cities.​

As for Tropicali?

The owner’s wife is apparently Hawaiian, and the recipes are hers, adapted for California tastes. They’re doing well financially. The atmosphere is fun. People love it.

But even locals defending it on social media admit: “She adjusted her poke bowls to cater to Californians”.​

And that right there is the whole conversation in one sentence.

What This Controversy Really Reveals

The Tropicali ranking isn’t about whether their poke tastes good. By all accounts, plenty of people enjoy it.

The 4.9-star rating with thousands of reviews isn’t fake.​

It’s about what we value.

Yelp rankings measure customer satisfaction, not cultural authenticity. They measure vibe, service, portion size, cleanliness, and Instagram-worthiness.

A restaurant that greets you with an animatronic shark mouth and employees reciting scripted responses about “mystical mermaids” is memorable. It’s fun. It’s shareable content.

Traditional poke is none of those things.

It’s a dude at Foodland scooping fish into a plastic container while you wait. No theatrics. No tikis. No carefully curated brand experience.

Just really good ahi that was swimming yesterday.

The poke industry revenue expanded to $2.0 billion by 2024. That money is building brands, franchises, and TikTok-friendly experiences. Meanwhile, actual Hawaiian fishermen are fighting for legislation just to get their fish properly labeled so consumers know what they’re buying.

Ashley Watts from Local I’a, a Kaimuki business specializing in small boat catches, said it plainly: “The fishermen have never been empowered to speak up. They never really feel like they have a voice to say anything”.​

That’s the real slap in the face Chef Sam Choy was talking about. Not that a California restaurant makes decent poke. But that the entire conversation has shifted so far from the source that we’re now ranking authenticity based on Yelp reviews and social media buzz instead of… you know… whether it actually tastes like Hawaiian poke.

Where Do We Go From Here

I’m not going to tell you to never eat mainland poke. Sometimes you gotta work with what you’ve got.

But if you’re visiting Hawaii and you walk past a grocery store poke counter to go to some Instagram-famous poke bowl shop with seventeen toppings and açaí drizzle, we need to have a conversation.

The best poke I’ve had in the last year? Wasn’t even at a restaurant.

My friend’s dad still goes shoreline fishing off Waianae. He brought back a cooler of fresh aku (skipjack tuna), cubed it right there on the tailgate, mixed it with what he had – shoyu, sesame oil, onions from his garden, Hawaiian salt.

We ate it with our hands while sitting on the beach, and it tasted like home.

You can’t Yelp review that. You can’t trademark it. You can’t recreate it in a mountain town restaurant, no matter how good your marketing is.

The verdict on America’s best poke? It depends on what you’re measuring.

Best theatrical dining experience? Maybe Tropicali wins.

Best representation of actual Hawaiian poke culture? Not even close.

And if you’re coming to Hawaii looking for authentic poke, here’s your insider tip: Skip the fancy poke bowl joints in Waikiki charging $18 for bowls loaded with mango and edamame. Hit up the poke counter at Foodland, Tamura’s, or any local supermarket between 3-6 PM when they’re restocking the fresh stuff 🐟.

Ask which poke was made with fish from the Honolulu Fish Auction that day. Look for the simple preparations – shoyu ahi, Hawaiian style, spicy ahi.

That’s where you’ll find what poke actually tastes like when it’s made by people who’ve been eating it their whole lives.

The smell of that poke counter – that clean ocean smell mixed with sesame oil and a hint of chili pepper – that’s the smell of home for thousands of us who grew up here. The sound of the scooper hitting the metal pan. The weight of the container in your hand is heavier than you expected because they don’t skimp on the fish.

These are the details that make poke what it is.

Not Instagram aesthetics or Yelp rankings. Just fish, tradition, and the understanding that sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to replicate.

So yeah, Tropicali might have the highest rating. But the best poke in America? It’s still here. It’s always been here. You just gotta know where to look – and more importantly, what you’re actually looking for. 🌺