Unless Washington Saimin returns one day with their delectable hamburger steak plate (side mac salad, side kim chi), one of the long-gone (and very missed) foods that reminds me of good times and youth is Aku Poke. I had no idea Times Supermarket (Liliha) had this available.
Also interesting: their aku is shipped in from Vietnam. I have a slight fear of all fish, to be frank, because of Fukushima, and yet I eat poke a few times each month. So imagine a fish like aku, which is lower on the food chain, from a place like Vietnam, which is closer to Japan than Hawaii.
I rationalize that because the Pacific Ocean currents go north/northeast, Vietnam's coast isn't affected by all things Japanese as much.
This aku poke was ono. Not as oily or fishy as the aku I remember from the 1980s, but then again, I mixed this poke with poi (Taro Brand, $5.99), and this was shoyu limu aku poke in reality. I also picked up a good-sized laulau ($3.99) from the warmer at Times.
Either way, I still love aku. Why is there so little aku poke on the market? Probably because it is used as bait to lure ahi, the big money fishy. And I'm in the minority; most people don't want fishy, oily fish.
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