RESTAURANT REVIEW : Sushi Bar Fulfills Dream of Owner, Offers Hip Haven With a Jazz Beat

You can tell just by the way Tani Yuichi smiles as he shakes and pours the sake cocktails at Tokyo Delve’s Sushi Bar that he’s a man living and enjoying a dream--which, in this case, is to own a jazz club-sushi bar in North Hollywood. It’s a modest, delightful, slightly wacky dream, but then the restaurant, with its homemade new wave/Japanese decor and high-spirited staff is a modest, delightful, slightly wacky place.

The walls are flat black, decorated with posters and colorful Hamafuda playing cards; the ceiling is spray-painted with punky squiggles and stencils, and Alberta Hunter sings the blues on a giant TV screen. Walking in, we are welcomed loudly and warmly, as long-awaited friends, and once seated, we’re caught up in the staff’s enthusiasm.

One of our party says: “I must have seen this place a hundred times--every time I go to the bookstore up the street--but I always thought it was a dive.” He’s overheard by customer on my right, who can’t help but exclaim: “Me too! I’d always pass it on my way to the bookstore, but then curiosity got the better of me, and I came inside. I’ve been coming back ever since.”

Indeed, most of the clientele look as if they, too, have wandered in from Valley Books--a casual, hip crowd that finds good background jazz the perfect background for good conversation. There are also smartly dressed secretaries downing the Baileys-flavored Shogun sake cocktails, kids with purple hair drinking Kirins, jocks with serious sushi addictions, and the occasional single man who finds that the continuous exchange with a sushi chef beats dining alone elsewhere.

Our sushi chef is from Tokyo, and his technique is best described as “slab-cut.” The portions of tuna, yellowtail and halibut draped over hand-formed rice slabs are roughly the dimensions of a Heath Bar. When asked, he recommends the mackerel; crowned with fresh ginger and green onions, it’s refreshing, delicious, and easily the least fishy mackerel we’ve ever had. The ikura and flying fish egg sushi are oblong seaweed shot-glasses brimming with orange roe; quail eggs are added on request. It may not be the most beautifully presented sushi we’ve ever had, but it’s fresh and delicious, and the portions are awesome.

We take a break from sushi for stick cutlets. Battered, fried and drenched in a compelling sweet sauce, the Japanese potato, the okra and the pumpkin sticks are especially memorable. Then our chef recommends shrimp head. As he was right about the mackerel, we give it a try. And, in fact, the bewhiskered, battered shrimp head is wonderful, so long as you think of crunchiness and taste, rather than shrimp physiology.

The positive shrimp-head experiment puts us in the mood for further adventure, so we take on the challenge of the spicy tuna roll, which comes in five gradations of spiciness--from regular to “40 times” to “100 times!” If you can eat all of the “100 times!” it’s free.

We start slowly, with regular and “40 times” rolls. Although mildly peppery, they’re no hotter than kappa maki (cucumber roll) dipped in horseradish. Much to the delight of our sushi chef, we jump ahead to the “100 times!” roll. So far, he informs us, only three customers have eaten an entire order.

The four sections come so encrusted with ground red pepper, they look like little tree trunks with a thick chili-red bark. Our most adventurous companion pops one section in his mouth, chews, swallows, smiles, turns pink, breaks out in a slight sweat on his upper lip, appears thoughtful.

“The heat keeps growing,” he says and downs a Benedictine-spiked Ninja sake cocktail before eating another section. Encouraged, the rest of us start nibbling.

“100 times!” is very, very tasty and very, very hot. And the hot does grow hotter. Soon, we’re so busy coping with the infernos in our own mouths, we don’t notice that our leader in this venture has become deeply flushed. His forehead is beaded in sweat. His eyes are watering. We finally notice that he is extremely quiet, potentially comatose. “You OK?” we ask.

He wipes his eyes. “It’s exponential heat,” he gasps.

Charlie Chaplin on Screen

There is no mention of ordering another round: Indeed, $3 seems a small price to pay to be excused from the contest. We spend the next 10 minutes drinking everything in sight and, incapable of conversation, watch Charlie Chaplin, who has replaced Alberta Hunter on the big screen.

We found, too, that the juices--banana, pineapple and orange--although sweetened and Osterized to resemble an “Orange Julius,” are fresh and quite cooling.

Eventually, we get another off-beat notion--we can’t help it, there’s a pervasive mischievous spirit loose at Tokyo Delve’s, and we decide to finish with nato. This also delights the sushi chef; he doesn’t get too many requests for the ultra-fermented soybean substance that is said to cure everything from melancholia to baldness.

Gleefully, he chops the beans until they throw off long slender sticky filaments, like spider webs or airplane glue. He then administers the substance as he sees fit, a hand roll to one, a bowlful garnished with shiso leaf and Japanese potato to another. One must believe nato’s magical properties to try it--why else would anybody eat anything that tastes like wet, burnt, rotting cardboard? We concentrate on Phil Collins, now in concert on the big screen, and take our medicine.

The chef monitors us with amused approval, then asks, “So. How is it now, after nato ?”

After nato, we tell him, is a far better state than during nato. “OK. Good!” he says. “Now, you want PA PO A!”

PA PO A is the one dessert on Tokyo Delve’s menu, and it comes in three sizes. We order a medium to split among three people. We sip tea as we wait and speculate whether there’s a place in Los Angeles where one can get lomi-lomi, the Indonesian massage that enables royalty to eat continuously.

We’re distracted by hoots and applause among the customers. PA PO A, an enormous sundae-like apparition, is on its way. The sushi chefs stand back. The owner himself delivers. And it’s another full minute before we have the courage to lift our spoons and attack the purple and green extravaganza: PA PO A is fresh apples, pears, kiwis, melon, banana, strawberries and canned mandarin oranges in yogurt, topped by lime sherbet and smothered with canned blueberries in heavy syrup: it’s Pee Wee Herman’s entry in a fruit cocktail recipe contest. And it wins honorable mention for effort.

Although Tokyo Delve’s surely rates as the most fun North Hollywood sushi-jazz club we’ve ever visited, I don’t think everybody should rush there at once: There are only 20 seats. But put it on your list. Stop in next time you’re at Valley Books.

Tokyo Delve’s Sushi Bar, 5239 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 766-3868. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday. Beer, wine and sake. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only $20-$30.