Sushi Chef’s Creations Can Be a Moving Experience : Food: From ‘dancing sawdust’ on pizza to other one-of-a-kind dishes, Yoshinobu Okatomi aims to please.

In his quest to create unforgettable dishes, sushi chef Yoshinobu Okatomi has taken his “sushi pizza” to the limit: He tops it with ultra-thin strips of dried fish that, once heated, wriggle.

“My customers think that it’s still alive and don’t eat until the pieces cool down and stop moving,” said Okatomi, owner of Sushi Bar Yoshida in Pasadena. “I call (the dried fish strips) ‘dancing sawdust.’ ”

Regulars say the ability of Okatomi to humor them while pleasing their palates is what draws them back week after week, despite the tab. The typical customer will spend $15 or more for lunch and at least $20 for dinner, Okatomi said.

Situated in a small strip mall at Foothill Boulevard and Altadena Drive, Yoshida offers a variety of specialty and traditional sushi dishes. The tiny restaurant, which can seat about two dozen, is strip-mall in decor: formica tables, linoleum-tile floor. Service is friendly and prompt--Okatomi is the lone chef. He employs one waitress and one kitchen helper.

Okatomi prides himself on customer service: He’s willing to mix any combination of rice, seaweed, seafood and spices, so long as he has the ingredients, which are displayed behind the glass at the sushi bar.

While working for 10 years at various Japanese restaurants in the Los Angeles area, he found his bosses discouraged him from deviating from traditional sushi preparation. Even worse, he said, he didn’t get to mingle with customers because he was usually in the kitchen. Two years ago he got fed up and opened Yoshida, bringing more than 100 customers with him, he said.

Of course, even Okatomi’s biggest fans wouldn’t keep spending lunch hours at Yoshida if the fish weren’t fresh. “You know it’s fresh when you walk in the door and you can’t even smell the fish,” said one customer. “You don’t find that at all sushi bars.”

Okatomi said he picks out fresh fish daily at a Downtown Los Angeles market.

Popular Yoshida dishes include the $8.25 tiger shrimp roll (seaweed and rice rolled around shrimp tempura and vegetables) and the $4.50 oyster sundae (oysters in the shell, with smelt eggs, green onion, spices and a quail egg). And, of course, the $8.25 sushi pizza (chunks of fish and cream cheese, topped with strips of dried bonito, atop a blanket of seaweed and rice).

It’s often cheaper to skip the elaborate dishes, such as tiger and California rolls, and buy the more traditional and simple sushi dishes, such as yellowtail and salmon handrolls (less than $4 apiece). Yoshida’s has a $6.75 bargain lunch that includes chunks of yellowtail, salmon, shrimp and octopus and a handroll.

Still a bit leery about eating sushi? Okatomi understands. Until he started drinking sake at age 18 in Japan, he would insist his mother cook his seafood, even though the rest of the family ate theirs raw. After he began drinking sake regularly, he said, his taste buds warmed up to raw fish.

Sushi Bar Yoshida is at 2525 E. Foothill Blvd. in Pasadena; (818) 793-9944. Generally open 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday (11 p.m. Friday night) and 5 to 11 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.