“Sweet Retreat” doesn’t sound like the name of a place that specializes in Asian food, but as I discovered last weekend, that is indeed the case. They do serve ice cream as well, but more on that later. Some of you may recall that I’m quite the fan of poke, so when I heard that I could acquire said favorite dish in Alcoa, I fast-tracked Sweet Retreat to the top of my list (even though my last review focused on Asian food as well).
The Grub Spouse and I showed up on the early side of the lunch hour and found a group of three queued up in front of us to order. That gave us a few extra minutes to study the menu signage and come up with an ordering strategy.
Their fare is divided primarily into poke and ramen. On the poke side, you start with a base (sushi rice, brown rice or spring mix) and then add two or three proteins ($12.95 and $14.95, respectively); the chicken and shrimp are cooked, while the salmon, tuna and spicy tuna are served raw, sushi-style (there’s also tofu). From there, you get your choice of as many as five vegetable/fruit toppings, three sauces and a crunchy garnish.
Here’s The Spouse’s bowl: brown rice, chicken and shrimp, cucumber, edamame, green onion, red onion, soy sauce and fried onion. For Grubbing purposes, I would order a ramen bowl, but I also got a poke bowl for that evening’s dinner. It consisted of brown rice, salmon, spicy tuna, cucumber, edamame, green onion, seaweed salad, eel sauce, spiky poke sauce and fried onion.
For ramen orders, you start by choosing a soup base — soy, pork, miso or chicken. All base orders cost $9.95 and include bean sprouts, edamame, fish cake, green onion, sweet corn and half a boiled egg. Next, you may add proteins if you wish. These include tofu, chicken, pork, beef and onion, and shrimp and crabmeat; prices range from $2 to $4 per protein. I got a miso-based bowl with shrimp and crabmeat for a total of $13.95.
We sat a table in the front dining area, which struck us as a pleasant and welcoming space — well-lit and lightly but intentionally Asian-themed. Based on the orders just ahead of ours, I could tell that the kitchen line was working at a reasonable pace. Soon enough, our orders came up at the kitchen counter toward the back of the restaurant, where additional seating is available.
First, I thought the visuals on all our items were first-rate — even more so than my favorite dishes at both Pokeworks and Tomo Poke Bowl (my usual go-to poke restaurants). Overall, the ramen bowl was pretty good. I’ve had better in the Knoxville area, but this one was certainly enjoyable enough. My main ding here is that they appeared to use imitation crabmeat instead of the real deal. I’m guessing that would have negatively impacted their pricing to do so.
As for the poke bowls, I liked both (I tasted my to-go bowl while it was fresh off the line). Both the cooked meats and the raw proteins were solid accents, and I liked the way they segregated the veggies from the proteins and each other; most other places mix everything together to some degree. Flavor-wise, however, I felt that both poke bowls were a little too light on the sauces — even mine, which had two different sauces. This may be my personal preference, but for me, the sauces go a long way toward the overall flavor of a poke bowl. But even considering their light hand, I still appreciated the innate ingredient flavors and textures of both our selections.
For the record, Sweet Retreat does serve six flavors of ice cream with a host of available toppings in one-, two- or three-scoop servings. They also have extensive selections of boba teas, fruit teas and slushes. And the menu is complemented by a small lineup of appetizers as well as an unagi bowl featuring barbecue eel, masago and more.
In the end, there were things I liked more and things I liked less about the food at Sweet Retreat, when compared to comparable items I’ve ordered from other Knoxville-area restaurants. But I wouldn’t hesitate to go back. And if you live in Blount County and have been wishing there were a poke/ramen option nearby, without having to drive to Knoxville, consider Sweet Retreat bowl-eligible.
Sweet Retreat
Food: 4
Service: 3.75
Atmosphere: 3.75
Overall: 4
Address: 727 Louisville Road, Alcoa
Phone: 865-724-1185
No alcohol service
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday
This Alcoa eatery prepares delicious poke and ramen bowls on the savory side and ice cream and boba teas on the sweet side.