Iwata’s Top-Quality Rice Matches Its Sushi

Ventura Boulevard is full of sushi bars that would like to be neighborhood hangouts. Here comes a new one, a spare, pastel space named for chef-owner Shigeo Iwata.

Only in a sushi restaurant is it possible to watch four white-toqued chefs running around looking wildly busy when there isn’t a single customer in the place. This was what I saw one evening early this month, though Iwata’s 14-seat sushi bar filled up steadily as the evening wore on.

Understandably. Though its menu is small and lacks flash, Iwata is a first-rate operation and the prices are more than fair. The proprietor was long the chef at Kushiyu in Tarzana, specializing in deep-fried meats and vegetables served on wooden skewers. But he’s gone back to more familiar territory here: sushi and Japanese cooked dishes.

It is the cooked dishes I remember most vividly from my dinners here. One of the best is yaki buta. Picture four perfectly uniform squares of thinly sliced stewed pork sitting pretty in a sauce based on soy sauce and sweet sake. This is an Okinawan style of serving pork that I’d call a compromise between Japanese and Chinese cuisines. (That won’t surprise a Japan watcher: Okinawa is an island chain halfway between Japan and Taiwan.)

Then there are appetizers such as tara saikyoyaki, hiryozu and tempura, which Iwata will suggest you try before digging into his sushi. He does make superb tempura--light, crisp and almost completely greaseless, the equal of any I’ve had in the city. Order the tempura appetizer and you get two shrimps, two pieces of piman (a slender Japanese green pepper), eggplant and pumpkin, all meltingly tender in a delicious batter.

The unusual hiryozu is described as deep-fried tofu with vegetables, but it tastes more like a tofu fritter. To make an order, tofu is chopped up with carrots, cucumbers and burdock root, formed into four one-inch cubes and deep-fried. A light soy dipping sauce is served on the side.

Tara saikyoyaki, black cod marinated in miso paste and then broiled, is one of my personal favorites wherever it is prepared. This version is a little on the salty side, but the delicate butteriness of the fish more than makes up for that, and the miso marinade adds a disarming complexity.

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Iwata’s sushi is particularly fresh and handsomely crafted, but what stands out particularly is the quality of the rice. The Japanese discuss the taste of rice almost endlessly, and often eat it plain, with nothing to disguise its flavor. The rice at a sushi restaurant is almost always of the best quality, and Iwata’s is no exception.

The type served here, a short-grain Japanese rice, is shiny and fluffy, so delicate I could eat it plain myself, or at most garnished with nothing but Japanese pickles (tsukemono).

The sushi list is not extensive but probably large enough to please almost anybody. If you ask for omakase (or “chef’s choice”), you can simply leave matters to the chef. When I requested it, Iwata prepared a delightfully smooth piece of fatty tuna belly (toro); flavorful octopus; hot, smoky eel; yellowtail (hamachi); and a nice and spicy tuna hand roll, all draped over sculpted pieces of vinegared rice arranged like little flowers on a lacquer tray.

The omakase changes from day to day, so depending on the chef’s mood and what he thinks tastes best that day, you may get a totally different selection than I enjoyed. The sea urchin (uni) is wonderful here, with a creamy iodine tang. Salmon skin roll is filled with jewel-like slices of carrot, cucumber and burdock root. Another good one is eel roll, a cylindrical creation wrapped up in crunchy nori seaweed.

Perhaps to cater to those who go along to sushi bars grudgingly, Iwata serves the usual complement of Japanese-American dishes: chicken and beef teriyaki, grilled salmon and even sukiyaki, bubbling in an iron skillet.

I recommend the calamari salad, where little rings of fried squid play off a bed of greens dressed in sesame oil and rice vinegar. I also recommend coming at lunch, when the prices are around 20% lower than at dinner, with no compromise whatsoever in quality.

DETAILS

* WHAT: Iwata.

* WHERE: 14423 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.

* WHEN: Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; dinner 5:30-10:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 5-10 p.m. Sunday.

* HOW MUCH: Lunch for two, $18-$32. Suggested dishes: tara saikyoyaki, $6.50; tempura, $6; hiryozu, $3.50; sushi, $3-$4.50.

* FYI: Beer and wine. Parking lot. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

* CALL: (818) 386-1980.

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