Poke bowls, nourish bowls, Buddha bowls ... whatever you like to call them, healthy bowls of goodness are a nourishing way to fill up, without feeling heavy afterwards.
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So what's the difference?
If you're bored with salad, a nourish bowl is a substantial and appetising option that can serve as breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Nourish bowls are nutrient-rich, filled with a mix of protein, grain and veggies that are packed with plenty of colour (eat the rainbow, as they say), texture and flavour, and likewise for a Buddha bowl (though they are technically of the vegetarian variety).
Poke bowls tread a similar path.
Originating in Hawaii, poke bowls are nutritious and filling, combining rice with fresh salad vegetables and, the key ingredient, raw, marinated fish, such as tuna or salmon.
Here are five places to get a nourishing bowl of goodness:
Lulu's Poke Cafe, 3-5 Crown Street, Newcastle
Lulu's Poke Cafe is Newcastle's home to the poke bowl.
"Traditionally, the poke is a Hawaiian dish that is served on a bed of rice with a small amount of garnishes and sashimi fish such as tuna or salmon," Lulu's co-owner Nathan Pepper says. "A lot of the fisherman in Hawaii eat it as a staple food." Pepper, who owns Lulu's with brother Jacob, offer their own twist on the dish, with options such as chicken, vegetarian or vegan poke bowls.
"They are similar to nourish bowls, but poke itself is more traditional with sashimi fish," he explains.
Open for breakfast and lunch, the cafe has a set menu of seven freshly-prepared poke bowls, such as sashimi salmon with lettuce, seaweed salad, pineapple, avocado, beetroot, edamame beans, cucumber and shallots ($19); or sashimi tuna with baby spinach, corn, purple cabbage, cherry tomato, seaweed salad, pickled ginger, red chilli, radish and sesame seeds ($19.50). Otherwise, create your own bowl from the options available, choosing your rice, salads, protein and sauce. If you're in a hurry, they also have pre-prepared poke bowls ready to go. Pepper says the salmon poke bowl is the most popular, followed by the tuna, and the chicken schnitzel bowl. Keep an eye out for their new menu when it launches on December 1.
Emerson's Restaurant, 492 Lovedale Road, Lovedale
Chef Emerson Rodriguez has returned full-time to the kitchen at his long-running Lovedale restaurant, which has undergone a renovation and shifted away from fine dining to adopt a casual dining menu. Included on the breakfast menu is Rodriguez's take on the poke bowl.
"It's one of those healthy options that you don't really see on menus very often. A traditional poke bowl is rice with marinated raw tuna or salmon, but I tweaked it around because I didn't know if people would take on eating raw fish for breakfast, so I put smoked salmon through it instead," he says.
The super fresh and healthy dish combines smoked salmon with carrot, cucumber, edamame beans and toasted sesame seeds, finished with a soy, sesame and pickled ginger dressing. Poke bowls often contain nori sheets and Rodriguez found his own way of incorporating it into the dish.
"Normally you shred nori sheets through it, but what I've done is blended the nori sheets and turned it into a powder, which I then sprinkle on the rice," Rodriguez says. So far, the dish has proved a hit with the vineyard's weekend breakfast crowd.
Lotus Corner, 50 Glebe Road, The Junction
There are bowls of all types at Lotus and they're open to adding more to the menu, according to cafe owner Guy Ashford. He says they recognised demand for gluten-free and vegetarian options a few years ago, taking inspiration from cafes his chefs visited in Byron Bay to create their popular Earth Bowl. The nourishing bowl, which is available for breakfast, lunch or dinner, combines maple pumpkin with spinach, dukkah, avocado, quinoa, toasted pepitas, sunflower seeds halloumi and beetroot hummus, with the option to add in extra protein as well (smoked salmon or spiced chicken). There is also a poke bowl on the menu, with salmon, seaweed, macadamia nuts and zesty Japanese ponzu sauce, as well as the Yogi Bowl with tempeh.
"Tempeh is a fermented soy product that is gaining in popularity as well because it has gut-friendly microbes. It partners well with rice and yummy peanut sauce, so our Yogi Bowl was born," Ashford says.
Talulah, 52 Glebe Road, The Junction
Like Talulah's Israeli cous cous that has been permanently on the menu for almost a decade, the cafe's Blessed Nourish Buddha bowl has become another one of their signature dishes. Brimming with roasted sweet potato, broccolini, hummus, avocado, chickpeas, ferments and slices of house-made nut loaf, the bowl has found its way back on to the menu because it is just that good. It's a satisfying feed, with all the elements needed to make a plant-based dish delicious (there are pops of sweet, zingy, creamy and crunchy). The bowl is available on the all-day menu, while the lunch menu also offers a house-smoked salmon bowl, with avocado, cauliflower rice, green peas, miso and tahini dressing, and kimchi and sesame cashew crumb.
Organic Feast Wholefood Cafe, 10-12 William Street, East Maitland
Organic Feast's green vegetarian bowl ($17) is an all-organic bowl of the good stuff, filled with mixed seasonal roast vegetables, quinoa, kale, baby spinach, broccoli, mushrooms, avocado, seeds, nuts and sprouts, with kimchi for added gut health goodness, and a green tahini dressing.
"The idea of a nourish bowl is to fill you up, so the quinoa has good protein in it and it's low GI, meaning it's a slow release of energy and it will keep you fuller for longer," cafe manager Sue Ferguson says.
"It also has a tahini dressing, so it's very nourishing nutritionally."
Organic Feast regularly offers bowls on the specials board, including their take on the poke bowl with brown rice, tofu, vegetables, sprouts, seeds and miso dressing.
