UKAI-TORIYAMA: DINNER IN ANOTHER DIMENSION

A visit to Ukai-toriyama, a wild game bird restaurant on this city’s outskirts, is like stepping through a dimensional warp into a distant, magical universe.

Tokyo is flat, urban, homogenous and relentlessly crowded, constantly pulsating with the collective heartbeat of its 12 million inhabitants. The green slopes of Okutakao, on the other hand, where Ukai-toriyama is located, is placid, idyllic and free of modern disturbances; the only sounds you’re likely to hear are those of birds warbling in the moonlight and the rustling of kimono. It’s no mean feat to find this type of shelter so close to Tokyo.

Before going further, let it be known that Tokyo need not necessarily be the world’s most expensive city. Although a meal in the finest restaurants here can cost several hundred dollars for two people, one can get a satisfying repast in any train station for under $5. Eating in Japan, as everything else here, is a matter of extremes. Ukai-toriyama is one of the few exceptions: A meal here, including absolutely first-rate service, will cost around $45 a person. It is an experience unequaled anywhere else in Tokyo.

When you arrive, you leave your shoes in an old country house and exchange them for a pair of slippers. You are then led up a precipitous path, past a babbling brook filled with two-toned carp, to a small cottage which will serve as your private dining room. All dining is private on these grounds, and the only voices you hear are your own echoing off the reedy walls of your secluded chamber.

A waitress slides the door open, and you remove your slippers and enter, sitting on luxuriously embroidered cushions of blue silk. There will be places for four at the horigotatsu , a square, sunken pit, the bottom of which is heated on cold evenings. In the middle of the horigotatsu is a lacquered table on which are placed the long chopsticks, teacups and copper cooking brazier you will need for your meal. Before you is a large picture window facing a brace of perfectly sculptured trees on the mountain side. You hear the distant sounds of the koto and shamisen playing ancient Japanese music. There are a few moments pause for reflection during which you can almost see inside your own soul. Then service begins.

A uniformed boy is the first to appear, entering with a large spade of glowing kashi , a wood prized for grilling. As the boy fills the brazier with the splendid orange embers, the room instantly warms up.

Now a waitress enters with a goose-shaped ceramic pitcher of sake, which she places directly on the brazier. When it too has warmed up, you are you are ready to begin the meal.

The first course is placed before you. The hand-made tray holds three appetizers: steamed chicken marinated in sake, an herbed sesame paste with an uncharacteristic touch of cumin, and a round of radish brushed with a dollop of delicately scented, pale yellow miso paste. All are light and provocative.

Sashimi is next--wafer thin slices of Hokkaido carp served in a bamboo ice bucket. This is sashimi equal to any in Japan, and your sense of taste finally begins to catch up with your other senses.

After the sashimi, you get a dual course. Iwanaresu , a river fish, arrives salt-crusted on a curved wooden stick. It is balanced by suimono, a clear soup clouded by tiny balls of minced duck. The stick is plunged into a sandy pit next to the brazier; it’s up to you to warm the fish over the fire and eat it from head to tail, as do the Japanese. Naturally, you may leave what you wish.

Eating and grilling the fish prepares you for the main course, the real reason Japanese people love to dine here. Ukai-toriyama specializes in thrush, swallow and other seasonal birds. These are brought to you marinated in juniper berries and spitted on wooden skewers. They are completely uncooked; the rest is up to you. The birds are accompanied by a basket of vegetables--little peppers, leeks and onions--that are also intended for the grill.

After grilling the birds, dipping them in a wooden crock of thick soy and devouring them, there is still lots more to eat. There are assorted pickles, barley rice with tororo (a grated yam), and miso soup with nameko , those flavorful, slippery textured mushrooms. You can eat your fill; if you need more, the food will be replenished by the waitress, who seems to materialize only when she is needed.

For dessert, there are three luscious, sugar-dipped strawberries and genmai cha , tea made from roasted barley. When you have finished eating, you are presented with a wooden block carved with Japanese characters, rather like the runes of old England. You then walk back up the path to the main house and exchange your slippers for your shoes. It is only then that you actually pay your bill, for even money is not allowed to disturb the serenity of Ukai-toriyama.

To get to Ukai-toriyama, take the Keio line from Tokyo’s Shinjuku station and ride it to the last stop, Takao san-guchi. Then call the restaurant from the special phone they have at the station and wait for the microbus to come and pick you up. (A taxi from central Tokyo would cost about three times as much as the dinner.)

Ukai-toriyama, 3426 Minami Asakawa, Hachioji City, Tokyo. Telephone 0426-61-0739. Dinner for two, $85-$100.