Maybe you’re wondering: What the heck is “poke”? It wasn’t that long ago I asked the same question. That seems surprising now because I like sushi, tuna, rice and spicy food. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I like poke.
But until Nami Poke opened in Springfield, I’m not sure I could have told you exactly what poke is. If pressed, I probably would have described it as something like “sushi in a bowl.” That’s not entirely wrong. But it’s not entirely right, either.
The basic idea is simple. Start with a base, usually rice or greens. Add raw fish or another protein, vegetables and other toppings, sauces and garnishes. At Nami Poke, located at South Grand Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard, you can choose a small bowl with one protein, a regular with two or a large with three. The regular bowl is currently $15.50 and includes four toppings, two garnishes and two sauces.
From there, things get considerably more interesting.
Bases include sushi rice, brown rice and mixed greens. You can also skip the base altogether — although, quite frankly, why would you want to do that? Protein choices include tuna, spicy tuna, albacore, salmon, unagi (eel), spicy salmon, imitation crab, shrimp, chicken and tofu. Unagi and the tunas come with a slight upcharge.
Then the fun begins. Toppings can include edamame, pickled carrots, seaweed salad, avocado, corn, cucumber, mango, cherry tomatoes and jalapeños. Sauces range from the house poke sauce and teriyaki to spicy mayo, sriracha, sweet mango, and wasabi mayo. Finish things off with garnishes that include green onion, cilantro, sesame seeds, crispy shallots, diced onion, cashews and masago (fish roe for an additional 75 cents).
Nami Poke allows customers to build their own bowls or choose from a variety of specialty bowls.
If that sounds like a lot of decisions for lunch, it is. It’s also probably my favorite thing about Nami Poke.
I tend to start with tuna or spicy tuna. I almost always add seaweed salad because I love both its taste and the contrast it brings to everything else in the bowl. Jalapeños usually go in together with pickled carrots or cucumber. I lean toward sriracha or another savory sauce rather than the sweeter choices, and I finish with green onions, cilantro and sesame seeds.
That’s my bowl, and I usually don’t stray very far from it. But I could, and that’s the point of Nami Poke.
Friends build completely different meals from the same menu. Someone can start with salmon and add mango, avocado and a sweeter sauce, while the person standing next to them goes with spicy tuna, jalapeños and sriracha. Another can skip raw fish entirely and order chicken, shrimp or tofu.
A spicy tuna bowl with mango sauce. PHOTO BY ZACH ADAMS
You can make it as safe or as adventurous as you want.
And that’s where my original “sushi in a bowl” definition starts to fail. Sushi generally arrives with most of the important decisions already made for you. With poke, you’re tinkering — a little more heat, something crunchy and something acidic (food almost always needs a good hit of acid). Maybe some sweetness. What makes a good bowl is not necessarily any one ingredient. It’s how those ingredients play against each other.
If you can’t handle the stress from constructing your own lunch, Nami Poke will happily do it for you. Its specialty bowls provide some good combinations. The Hawaiian Ahi Bowl features marinated tuna and albacore with avocado, cucumber, edamame and seaweed salad. The Spicy Volcanic combines spicy tuna and spicy salmon with avocado, cucumber, edamame and jalapeños before adding cilantro, crispy shallots and spicy mayo.
There are plenty of departures from there. The Tropical Island pairs marinated salmon and shrimp with seaweed salad, avocado, cucumber and fresh mango. The Ocean Wave goes even further, combining salmon, albacore and shrimp with pickled carrot, seaweed salad, corn and cherry tomatoes, topped with wasabi mayo, onion, masago and cashews. There are also eel, shrimp teriyaki, chicken teriyaki and vegetarian bowls.
Most of the time, I see people carrying their food out the door. But seating is available for those who want to dine in. And despite the fact that every bowl is assembled to order, this isn’t something you need to set aside an hour for. In my experience, they move you through pretty quickly.
So, what exactly is poke? I’m still tempted to use “sushi in a bowl” as shorthand, but that misses the best part. Sushi generally asks you to choose something someone else has already created. Poke hands you a list of ingredients and lets you take it from there. I’ve found my combination. Have fun finding yours.
Address: 916 South Grand Ave. W
Phone: 217-679-3771
Website: nami-poke.square.site
Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday
This article appears in November SBJ 2026.