For months, I’ve been trying to get my hands on the most exclusive poke in Los Angeles.
Made using high-quality ahi tuna sourced from Hawaii, minimal ingredients including shoyu, scallions, and sweet onions, and not a single extraneous kale leaf to be found, this poke is unlike most available offerings in the city.
So, when the chance to try it finally came up, I gladly braved the 90-degree heatwave to meet a stranger in a random parking lot in Koreatown.
The stranger in question is Kelsey Sachi Lee, owner of Dover Sole Market, an operation that she describes as a “new school, digital fish market.”
The seafood wholesaler, who has worked with Found Oyster, Joint Seafood, Queen’s Raw Bar and Grill, and other private chefs, primarily operates Dover Sole Market out of the trunk of her car.
Every week, Lee posts her poke menu via Instagram Stories, along with dates, times, and the names of neighborhoods where customers can pick up their orders. The lucky few who DM their order requests in time are rewarded with a follow-up message containing location details—usually a public parking lot in Koreatown or Sherman Oaks—where they eagerly line up to snag their fish.
According to Lee, she sells between 300 and 350 pounds of whole bigeye tuna per week.
Lee’s poke, sold by the pound and half pound, often sells out in minutes. Hopeful customers can turn on Instagram notifications to get alerts when Dover Sole Market posts to Stories, but even then, it’s fiercely competitive: During a recent drop, she says she received more than 90 messages in the first four minutes alone.
According to Lee, she sells between 300 and 350 pounds of whole bigeye tuna per week, and she recently added lomi salmon and octopus to the menu.
Lee tells L.A. TACO that, after moving to Los Angeles ten years ago, she craved the type of poke she grew up eating in Oahu. She fondly recalls the Hawaiian poke counters her family used to frequent during weekly grocery shopping trips.
“When we were growing up, it was just a stop in the store—it was a deli stop. You were getting your vegetables and then your meat and then your milk,” she says. “And then you were getting poke at the counter.”
When asked how Hawaiian-style poke differs from the popular fast-casual poke shops in Los Angeles, Lee explains that one key difference is the way it’s prepared and sold.
In Hawaii, raw fish and shellfish are cut into bite-sized cubes and sold on their own by the quarter pound. It’s commonly served with minimal additions, which may include various combinations of Hawaiian salt, limu (edible marine algae), kukui nuts, shoyu, sesame oil, Maui onions, and scallions.
“I couldn't find it here,” Lee tells me. “So I just decided to make it for fun.”
She began ordering whole tuna from Hawaii, sharing some with her friends and selling the rest to restaurants and private chefs. In February, Lee officially launched Dover Sole Market, making regular trips to Hawaii and working with a buyer to source fish directly from local fishermen.
Unlike most poke restaurants in L.A. that serve fish over a warm bed of white rice (or, God forbid, kelp noodles), Lee recommends her customers try it on its own so they can taste the ahi freshness. She wants people to resist the urge to conflate the Hawaiian dish with heavily sauced poke bowls that come topped with a kitchen sink of ingredients, such as avocado, pickled vegetables, and kale.
Poke that sits out in a counter, allowing the flavors to marinate the way it is served in Hawaii, does exist in Los Angeles, but you have to drive a little further out. Like at Poke & More in Long Beach and Lomita. Or at Ali'i Hawaiian Grill in Manhattan Beach.
“I feel like it's created this mentality that you need to have all of those accouterments,” Lee tells L.A. TACO.
She believes the Los Angeles-based chain Sweetfin is partly to blame for the ubiquity of the do-it-yourself, Chipotle-style poke bowls that rose to popularity outside of Hawaii in the 2010s.
For too many fast-casual restaurants, sugary sauces and extraneous toppings are an easy way to mask low-quality tuna.
Today, the bowl-ification of poke often translates to mediocre-quality raw fish, overcompensating sauces, and a perplexing array of ingredients like sweet potato, sundried tomatoes, and truffle oil. For too many fast-casual restaurants, sugary sauces and extraneous toppings are an easy way to mask low-quality tuna.
However, Lee is quick to point out that different styles of poke can co-exist in Los Angeles; they don’t necessarily need to be in competition with each other. Ultimately, she recognizes that everyone has different tastes and preferences, and she wants L.A. residents to have more options.
For Dover Sole Market, Kelsey Sachi Lee believes that minimalism is key. That’s why she tries to do “as little as possible” to not “mess up” the tuna, preferring to let it shine on its own.
“When I think of poke from Hawaii, I think of the quality of the fish. I think of simplicity,” she says. “I don't think that it demands rice at all.”
For Dover Sole Market, Kelsey Sachi Lee believes that minimalism is key. That’s why she tries to do “as little as possible” to not “mess up” the tuna, preferring to let it shine on its own.
When I finally get to try Dover Sole Market, after months of failed attempts, my anticipation is at an all-time high.
I meet up with Lee the way one might meet with their local drug dealer: She parks in a discreet location at an agreed-upon time and hands me a bag from her car. I hop on Metro and race home with my precious cargo in hand.
At first bite, I’m immediately nostalgic. The shoyu ahi reminds me of the poke that my dad, a retired sushi chef, used to make at his Japanese restaurant.
Lee’s octopus poke is heartbreakingly tender; it’s savory and mild, imparted with a complex earthy flavor from the Hawaiian salt.
Sriracha mayo coats the spicy ahi, which is topped with green onions and masago. The tuna is rich and velvety with a good amount of heat.
Boasting a unique flavor profile that I haven’t tasted in years, Lee’s poke is unlike anything else available in the city. It’s the epitome of good poke: tender and buttery, savory and simple.
I scarf down half a pound of tuna in a matter of minutes—no rice required.
