Robata: Tokyo Without a Visa : Where else can you get seaweed topped with foie gras?

Robata, 250 N. Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills. (213) 274-5533. Open for dinner Monday through Saturday. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $80-$140.

No matter what you might be expecting when you arrive, Tokyo will be differ ent. It is the most surprising city on Earth.

You know, of course, that it’s big and bustling. You know that the trains and subways work with extraordinary efficiency. But you might be surprised to discover that when you get into a taxi, your driver will probably not know where to go. Addresses make no logical sense--buildings are numbered according to the date they were built--and most people find where they’re going by following little maps with references to local landmarks.

You know that the Japanese have an enormous reverence for tradition. Still, it’s something of a shock to get on the subway and find women wearing traditional kimonos standing next to young girls in Mary Janes and poodle skirts.

You know that you’ll find great sushi and tempura. Perhaps you even know that Tokyo has more restaurants than any other city you can think of--some half a million at last count.

But you might still be shocked by the impact of food upon the life of this city. It’s everywhere. You can’t walk half a block without encountering pastry shops, fast food joints, noodle parlors, fine French restaurants . . . after a while you get the sense that all anybody does is eat. When you walk into a department store you discover whole floors devoted to food--and shopkeepers eager to entice you with free samples.

Why is all this so surprising? Probably because here in Los Angeles, the Japanese restaurants all seem so similar, so traditional, so staid.

But now along comes Robata, which maybe the first local restaurant to give us a real taste of Tokyo. The food is not more authentic than what you get in other fine Japanese restaurants in California, but this is one restaurant that seems to be looking to the future, not to the past.

Consider the name. When you walk into a robata restaurant in Japan you find chefs standing behind mountains of beautifully arranged food. You point to what appeals to you, they cook it on a grill and then hand it to you, across the mountain, on a long wooden paddle that looks a lot like an oar. Well, here at this Robata there are no mountains, no paddles, no visible grills. It’s not really a robata restaurant at all. Only a small portion of the menu is devoted to traditional robata dishes. And here they are called “ demi plats chaud en brochettes .”

Consider the menu itself. It is an elegant document that looks as if it belongs in a design contest. Open the heavy gray folder and you discover that all the categories are written in French, followed by English descriptions so cryptic that they belong on one of those nonsense T-shirts that you find all over Japan. Haut plats chaud , for instance, are “various methods of warm preparation evolve with a variety of seafoods, meats and vegetables in masterpieces to the eye and the palate.”

Inside the main menu is yet another menu, offering the kaiseki , or multi-course meal. This is all fairly straightforward: the usual set Japanese courses ( wan , mukozuke , agemono , sunomono , etc.) are listed with simple descriptions. The price is also straightforward: the 12-course dinner is $70.

And now consider the restaurant itself. It is a handsome, modern room filled with granite, glass and wood. Out in front is what looks at first like a sushi bar. When you look more closely you notice that the counter is set with not only plates and chopsticks but also knives, forks and wine glasses. The chefs working behind the counter with enormous grace are all Japanese, but the waiters and waitresses are not. In this room, as in Tokyo itself, nothing seems out of place. When you look up and see a man in a short-sleeved shirt walking in with a woman in a very expensive kimono, you are not even surprised. Of course.

The times I’ve been to the restaurant the clientele has been largely Japanese. As one friend explained, “In Japan, $70 per person for a kaiseki dinner would be very, very inexpensive.” No wonder the tourists all seem to be indulging in the multi-course menu.

This has varied every time I’ve tried it. The first time the meal began with little chips of dried stingray sprinkled with chiles and served in a beautiful bamboo basket. It was a lovely presentation, a perfect way to whet the appetite. On another occasion the course consisted of rather tired potato puffs and turnip chips.The next course is called sakizuke , which means delicacies of the season. In this season that means matsutake mushrooms, the truffles of Japan. Last time I had them they were sliced into icy slivers, set on a slice of lemon, and served in a martini glass. It was a surprising--and refreshing--presentation.

The soup in this season is likely to contain matsutake as well--only this time the mushrooms will be warm, which demonstrates a wholly different side of their character. Served in a broth with little pieces of fish, the mushrooms seem more like sea creatures than something that grows in piney woods. The soup arrives in a little metal kettle; you should know that it is considered gauche to eat out of the kettle itself. The proper procedure is to pour the soup into the little bowl on the side. The next course is sashimi. The Japanese know that you go to a sushi house for the best sashimi, and while the fish here is fine, it is not extraordinary. The most impressive thing about it is that the wasabi hiding beneath slices of squid, tuna and shrimp is the real thing, not the stuff that comes powdered in a tin. And that the portions of ginger on the side are whole marinated pieces, far more refreshing than the ubiquitous shavings you usually are served.

If you’re lucky, the next course, a salad, will be “Taisho’s special” (which costs a hefty $10 on the a la carte menu). It contains various interesting greens tossed with fried yam chips, fried lotus root, fresh slices of fig and large pieces of raw tuna. What holds this eclectic blend together is an Asian vinaigrette that is subtle, and yet powerful enough to marry these diverse ingredients.

Next comes yakimono --a grilled dish. This is the only real robata you’ll get all evening, and it might be chicken meat balls, or steak-- something quite clean and simple. It will be followed by a fried dish: Once this was wonderful soft-shelled crab; another time, less impressive shrimp tempura.

But the final dishes are invariably interesting. One night there were delicate dumplings made of lobster and whitefish and wrapped in bean curd skin; they don’t seem to be on the menu, but I’d go back just for those. Another night there was marinated salmon served with a single ginger shoot and punctuated by the richness of a roasted chestnut. If you can talk the waitress into letting you order the boiled short ribs with mustard soy sauce for your nimono course, do it; this is a fabulous dish. Or order it a la carte: the short ribs are simply two little pieces of meat, each resting on a slice of turnip with a dab of mustard sitting on top. They are immersed in a broth rich with the flavors of meat and wild mushrooms, and if there is a dish more evocative of fall in a forest, I haven’t had it.

The chef likes to start slowing to the denouement with a sort of salad course of slippery seaweed in a tiny chilled glass; one time this was topped with foie gras , another time with caviar. Both times it was superb.

Then there will be a rice or noodle dish, and finally fruit. Compared to the sort of showy fruit you get in Japan at kaiseki meals (where you might get rare melons so expensive they’d easily serve as the down payment on a car, or strawberries the size of golf balls), this is pretty plebeian stuff.

And no wonder; serving the fancy fruit of Japan could easily double the price of the meal. Japanese visitors would probably still find the meal a bargain, but for those of us for whom a visit to Robata will have to serve as a visit to Japan, the price of the ticket is already pretty high.