Big Variety of Little Japanese Dishes

“A healthy husband who is rarely at home is a good husband.” That’s a common Japanese proverb, and it goes a long way toward explaining why Japanese businessmen spend so much time at the sakaba (sake bar) after a hard day at work. And in Japan, these male bastions are about as common as street signs.

But in America, things are different. Sakaba here are more than just bars for businessmen; they are equal opportunity restaurants, often filled with as many women as men. That’s because they are just about the only places to enjoy the earthiest and most satisfying style of Japanese cooking, kappo .

Kappo are the little dishes eaten while drinking, and their variety is enormous. They are naturals for grazing and noshing, so it’s only a matter of time before their popularity begins to rival sushi. It’s already happening. Drop by Yuu, and see for yourself.

Yuu is the latest, and arguably the best, of places serving this type of cuisine in Los Angeles. It just may do wonders for the trend. Yuu is also the sister restaurant of Western Avenue’s wonderfully authentic Japanese pub, Mitsuki, but this time both spirit (an extensive English menu) and location (just one block east of the San Diego Freeway on Santa Monica Boulevard) have moved considerably westward. Nothing has been lost in translation.

Even the attractively bound menu makes concessions to the West. Someone has painstakingly transliterated the names of all those dishes you used to need an interpreter to order, and included a coherent description alongside. As far as I know, this is a first.

There is, of course, a Japanese menu, but I’m informed that the only thing that hasn’t been translated into English are the brand names of the various sorts of sake. For the record, I tried several different brands, but the sake arrived so hot that I couldn’t tell them apart. Credit that to an unusual metal device kept right behind the sake bar; it heats the sake with boiling water and little slots keep the flagons red hot.

In addition to the sake bar, the elegant, faintly lit interior has two other separate sections: a sushi bar and a back area dominated by an oddly shaped communal table that looks like a hollowed-out triangle. There are also a few small tables for those who desire a little privacy.

The sushi bar is a concession to the host country. Sushi here is fine, but there is no compelling reason to dine at Yuu if that is all you are after. Oh, there is a nice enough tekka don , a rice bowl topped with sushi-style tuna, and dandy things like California roll, sea eel, and the usual parade of ocean dwellers. But kappo is what you are here for, and plenty of it. Once you start ordering these little dishes you probably won’t be able to stop.

On the next-to-the last page of the bound menu is a three-dish category called “delicacy.” I suggest that you begin there . . . as soon as you’ve ordered your flagon of hot sake, or draft of ice cold beer. Try ankimo , the Japanese version of pate de fois gras that here comes in three creamy, pink, outrageously rich slivers of monkfish liver surrounded by tiny sliced pickles.

Another wonderful delicacy is mozuku , the most delicate of Japanese seaweeds, its tangled wispy strands dressed in a light vinegared sauce. It smells of new-mown grass and has a faintly sweet aftertaste.

Now that you’ve had the best, you’ll want to try the rest. Japanese men love buta no kakuni , chunks of stewed pork in a sweet sauce, or chasoba , cold buckwheat noodles in a green tea broth. Women generally consider these dishes unrefined, and order lots of sunomono --marinated seafood with cucumber--and yasai takiawase --boiled carrot, pumpkin, bamboo, and snap pea--dressed elegantly with a splash of mirin . (Japanese men generally disdain these dishes as being unmanly.)

The menu abounds in salty dishes, cleverly put there to make everyone thirsty. If you want to be really thirsty try hone senbei , the deep-fried, crispy bones of halibut, about the size and thickness of a Saltine cracker . . . with about five times the salt. Less exotic, and more appealing are ebi shinzho and hotate shinzho , little puffs of shrimp and scallop paste fried into fluffy golden balls and served with a spicy dipping sauce. Another beauty is amaebi no karaage , deep-fried sweet shrimp that are meant to be eaten whole--head and all.

Even though the dishes are often tiny, it’s impossible to make a dent in the large menu in a single visit. There are 20 kinds of seafood alone: smelt, giant clam, mackerel, butter fish, red clam . . . They come salt-baked, soy-glazed, in soup, in sushi. There is a Japanese version of stuffed cabbage roll, hakusai , that would make a Hungarian grandmother jealous. They even serve avocado with tofu--a dish that no self-respecting Japanese man would order on his way home from work.

Recommended dishes: ankimo , $3.50; mozuku , $3; oyster porridge, $4.75; buri no shioyaki , $4.50; shimeji tsutsumiyaki , $4; mini-sukiyaki, $3.75.

Yuu, 11043 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles. (213) 478-7931. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 6 p.m.-11 p.m. Beer, wine only. Some parking in lot. American Express, Master Card and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $15 to $35.