RESTAURANTS : New Kitayama in Newport Beach Deserves a Bow for Extraordinary Offerings

Kitayama fills a vacuum on the local dining scene: it is the area’s first serious Japanese restaurant. It is also an extraordinary place where you are overwhelmed by the almost otherworldly grace and elegance of sophisticated Japanese cuisine. Arigato, my humblest bows.

The Newport Beach restaurant is owned by Kodaniya Inc. a subsidiary of Ewa Corp., one of Japan’s biggest restaurant concerns. (Kodaniya also owns Tokyo Kaikan in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.) Kitayama’s management was able to draw upon Ewa’s huge infrastructure to assemble its team of chefs: eight seasoned Tokyo veterans headed by Yoshio Shirai.

From outside, Kitayama looks like one more modern structure, built up on a remote bluff in a recently developed part of the seaside city. Inside, it is clear that the company has spared no expense to reproduce an authentic Japanese environment. The dining area looks rather like a Buddhist temple: the walls are of white fir, traditional lamps hang over the tables, expensive byobu (Japanese screens) and objets d’art are scattered throughout the restaurant.

Ask for a booth, where you can be seated on zabuton (fluffy Japanese cushions) placed on straw banquettes. The sensation is almost that of floating. Look through the sliding glass doors onto the garden surrounding the restaurant and pause for reflection. You’ll be flooded with serenity.

If this sounds too good to be true, you’ll find that there is one slight catch. The restaurant is obviously intended to coddle the growing number of Japanese businessmen in Orange County; there are kimono-clad waitresses, exclusive private rooms complete with karaoke music boxes (at extra charge), and an elaborate Japanese menu that has not been translated. The restaurant does not seem to be prepared for, or concerned about, an onslaught of Occidental foodies.

Right now, Western customers can expect young American servers who often haven’t a clue about the more intricate Japanese dishes, and an English menu that borders on the mundane. Maybe Kodaniya figures most of us will just head for the sushi bar, where a stocky, Japanese John Belushi look-alike in a blue pill-box hat awaits us with salty fish and even saltier conversation. It’s pleasant enough.

But sushi is not what you want to eat in this restaurant where there is so much more. I asked manager Yoshimi Kimura if the Japanese menu could be translated, and he just shook his head. “It changes every day,” he said, “and our English is so poor.” The way to get around this is to order sho-ka-do at lunch, a combination featuring some of chef Shirai’s specialties, or a kaiseki dinner, an elaborate, multi-course feast. I did both; both were fabulous.

Sho-ka-do is a large tray filled with delicacies equal to almost anything you can find in Tokyo, at a price that wouldn’t get you much more than a shot of Scotch there. The tray itself looks like a flower basket with a carved bamboo top and a ceramic plate underneath. Served with the tray are a few little crocks, each with separate dishes to embellish the lunch. It’s an epiphany of tastes.

On the tray were a rolled galantine of chicken with Japanese herbs, a piece of glazed yellowtail, rectangles of tamamgoyaki (a sweetened egg cake), cubes of konyakku (a rubbery comestible made from yam), yuba (bean-curd skin) stuffed with a shrimp forcemeat, mushroom age (a deep-fried, stuffed shiitake mushroom), sashimi of tuna and sweet shrimp, and a tender piece of stewed beef with a grated horseradish topping. I am told that the tray contains different things every day.

Alongside the tray were meshi rice, a sort of risotto with nori (seaweed) and grated carrot; aemono, a vinegared course made from marinated eggplant and tomato; and finely chopped tsukemono (Japanese pickles). I eagerly ate everything until I realized I could eat no more. That rarely happens with a Japanese lunch.

Kaiseki is a different matter. This is where the chefs really strut their stuff, and it would be considered coarse to walk away from a kaiseki dinner with a feeling of excess. When you finish, you’ll feel nothing more than a blissful fullness.

Kitayama serves three kaiseki dinners, one with shabu-shabu (the one-pot Japanese winter dish), one with crab (which accounts for a major part of the price), and the real hit, omakase kaiseki, literally “chef’s choice.” It is this one that I most strongly recommend. It is the most expensive, and the most unforgettable.

My kaiseki began with zenzai (appetizer), a faux wild chestnut made from an egg batter prickled with tiny yellow noodles (inside there was a real roasted chestnut), and a tiny shrimp in an endive boat filled with homemade mayonnaise.

The next course was o-wan, a soup course called dobinmushi, served in a dobin, or steaming pot. The pot contained matsutake, the rarest and most expensive of Japanese mushrooms.

That was followed by superb sashimi, and then came a surprise. Yakimono, the broiled course, was a gratin of whitefish in a timbale. Kitayama is so confidently Japanese that it dares to serve French food.

The dinner didn’t end there. Agemono, the fried course, was exquisite--balls of shrimp in fish paste that had been rolled in crisped seaweed. They were served with a spicy momiji-oroshi, a salmon-colored mound of grated carrot and ginger. Then came nimono, the stewed course, and the evening’s most unusual. Stewed meats and Japanese vegetables came cold, in a glorious aspic mold. It’s the kind of seasonal, eccentrically ethnic dish that you just never expect to see outside Japan. I found it sensational.

There remained an excellent sunomono (salad) of julienned cucumbers and sea eel, a fragrant cedar box filled with rice, salted salmon and ikura (salmon roe), and a dessert of fresh fruit. All the crockery was beautiful, and the evening went perfectly--after we requested a Japanese national to explain the dishes. Of course, there are always selections that need no explanation like the chicken, hamburg steak, the tempura or the filet mignon from the English menu. If you find romance in those dishes my humblest bows to you, and to chef Shirai. Foreigners, incidentally, are never expected to bow.

Kitayama is moderately priced at lunch, expensive at dinner. Lunches are $7.50 to $18. Dinners are $11 to $36 (English menu), and kaiseki are from $40 to $50 per person.

KITAYAMA

101 Bayview Place, Newport Beach

(714) 725-0777

Open for lunch Monday-Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; daily for dinner, from 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

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