SING A SONG OF SUSHI

When I lived in Tokyo, I loved to spend my evenings in little neighborhood bars, drinking sake, nibbling on odoburu (hors d’oeuvres) and listening to wayward captains of Japanese industry crooning mindlessly into karaoke boxes. These uncommonly brave souls, worn to a frazzle from pressure at work, are carefree and happy in these bars. With their neckties drooping and their hair disheveled, their professional lives seem several worlds away. Karaoke is therapy; I’m not sure modern Japan could function without it. Here’s how it works.

An audiocassette plays an elaborate arrangement to a popular song, and anyone who’s willing to pay a nominal charge gets to sing the lyrics into a hand-held microphone. The whole thing comes out through a box-shaped speaker, making the singer sound as if he’s headlining at the Greek Theatre. (It’s amazing how good you sound with a full orchestral accompaniment.) To paraphrase Andy Warhol, it’s everyone’s chance to be a star for five minutes . . . provided he can carry a tune.

Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo has had karaoke for quite sometime, but now it has surfaced on the Westside, at Budokan, a Japanese-California restaurant that caters to a largely English-speaking clientele. Sociologists, get your pencils. This is a phenomenon that could only happen in Los Angeles.

Budokan has a strange look; it’s ultra-modern with white walls and overhead stage lighting, but it manages to look Japanese at the same time, thanks to a few well-placed shoji (wood and paper panels) and a variety of other decorations. At the far end of the dining room, there is a stage with a complex video set-up, just waiting for 10 o’clock. Before that hour, the restaurant is much like any other, quietly serving dinner to its guests, and an impressive meal at that. Even without the added attractions, Budokan is worth a detour.

The chef here, Yama (Mr. Yokoyama,

really), is a gray-haired, Ginza-trained French chef, whose credentials include Ma Maison and Bistango, and he’s an excellent practitioner of what I’d call ‘70s cuisine: light, creamy sauces in fresh, natural preparations, but without the creatively esoteric style you find in new restaurants today. Dishes are clearly Western, but Yama has given them a strong Japanese flavor.

Appetizers like sauteed mushrooms are nearly perfect: oyster mushrooms, chanterelles, cepes and shiitake sit in a creamy sauce lightly touched with garlic. Gyoza , the Japanese version of pot stickers, come deep-fried with a soy-ginger dipping sauce. Still another wonderful starter is scallops with ginger sauce, plump and elegant, seared ever so slightly and tasting of the grill. Sushi is made at a sushi bar visible from the dining room and there is a full complement, including a special creation called house special roll, which has little chunks of batter-fried shrimp inside. All the sushi is first-rate.

Main courses can be Japanese, like tempura and teriyaki, or Western, like pastas, grilled meats or sauteed seafoods. A tenderloin steak positively floated over a sauce with a deep brown glaze, the meat naturally tender, the sauce enhancing every bite, as good a beef dish as I’ve eaten this year. Angel-hair pasta came al dente , with little chunks of salmon and sea bass, whole mussels, whole scallops and cut shrimps, drizzled with a white wine butter sauce. Salmon teriyaki, served with seasonal vegetables, is worth singing about.

And that’s exactly what you can do, as soon as you’ve finished it. By that time, the disc jockey should have climbed into his tiny booth and the waitress should have handed out request slips for you to fill out, along with special song books. The rest is easy.

They call your name and you take the stage, with every eye in the place on you. The words to the song flash before your eyes on a video screen (follow the bouncing ball) and you sing into the microphone. A music video is projected onto a large screen behind you. Don’t be nervous, because even if you can’t hit a note your song will be better than the video, which looks as if it was directed by a chimpanzee. If the technology here is ‘80s and the food is ‘70s, the songs are definitely ‘60s or even ‘50s. Songbooks are full of tunes like “Runaway” by Del Shannon, “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis, “The Girl from Ipanema” by Brasil ’66 and schlockier stuff like “Que Sera Sera” and “Feelings,” which no one has the audacity to sing. Well, almost no one.

My friends convinced me that it was my sovereign duty to sing the corniest song in the book, so I did my own version of “The Impossible Dream,” for which I was nearly pelted with sashimi. Don’t try it.

Incidentally, while you’re singing along, there is an excellent late supper menu with nabeyaki (a Japanese one-pot dinner), sesame fried chicken, soft-shell crab in a tomato basil coulis and wonderful guacamole and homemade chips. Guacamole? Like I said, it could only happen in Los Angeles.

Budokan, 10914 W. Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles, (213) 475-9924. Open for lunch, Monday-Friday; for dinner Monday-Saturday. Karaoke and late supper from 10 p.m. (until 2 a.m. on weekends). Major cards. Full bar. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $35-$60. Karaoke, $1 per song.