About Poi Dog

If you ever ate at Poi Dog’s Philadelphia storefront or its food truck, you would have been invited to douse your fresh ahi poke bowl or smoky Kalua pork-laden plate lunch with generous dashes of a savory, vinegary house-made and spicy but not-too-spicy sauce that wasn’t quite a sauce. Rice soaked in chili peppah water, mingling with the drippings of juicy pork and glistening fish, propelled Poi Dog receive two Best of Philly awards in 2014 and 2017. “Poi Dog” means “mixed breed” or “mutt” in Hawaiian pidgin and refers to hybrid foodways of the business, which for 7 years served plate lunches, poke bowls and desserts rooted in Hawai’i’s local food traditions. Poi Dog’s flavors drew from the influences of the Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and Portuguese workers who brought their cuisines to the islands’ sugarcane and pineapple plantations, eventually melding them together to form Hawai’i’s local food. Poi Dog the restaurant and food truck closed in 2020, but its story continues in this burgeoning line of sauces, encapsulating memories and stories of Hawaii in these bottles.Read their story