Some like it raw

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There it was: a platter of glistening beef liver sashimi, bite-size pieces topped with slivers of garlic that came with a sesame oil dipping sauce. Raw liver doesn’t taste much like cooked liver -- it’s mild, with a texture that’s soft and smooth and slippery and has a little crunch.

It was just one of the appetizers during a recent beef extravaganza at Totoraku, a reservations-by-referral-only West L.A. Japanese restaurant, along with quail eggs topped with caviar, cubes of fresh tofu topped with toro, slices of abalone, and a couple of kinds of beef tartare.

Then, things got hot. The wood-fired hibachi -- a smoke-blackened box that looked as if it had been in rotation since just after WWII -- was set on the center of the table and a parade of beef followed, plates covered with slices of tongue, rib-eye, short ribs (galbi style). Onto the hibachi it went -- all of it well marbled and really succulent hot off the grill. The plates of tasty beef kept coming, until we cried uncle and finished up with blueberry and lychee sorbet.

-- Betty Hallock

Photos by Betty Hallock