Sushi Supreme

Your neighborhood sushi bar is probably relaxed but highly predictable. If you want to know the Valley’s most informal, unpredictable sushi bar, it’s Makoto Sushi.

At this hip, cozy Encino place, the chef-owner himself welcomes all customers with a booming “Irasshai!” Favored customers get to sit in the center of the sushi counter, where they have a privileged view of the chefs. Meanwhile, newcomers, such as you or I, will be relegated to one of the small side tables and sit huddled up against the wall.

The quality of Makoto Sushi’s fish is excellent. Ask to start with tuna tataki, found on a specials blackboard hanging behind and slightly above the area where the chefs work. This is a wonderful salad of thin-sliced tuna belly, shredded white radish and fragrant green onions, all bathed in a spicy ponzu sauce. It’s a dish I would come back for any time, and makes a perfect appetizer.

Makoto’s sushi, too, is generally fresh and handsomely crafted, but what particularly stands out is the quality of the rice. The Japanese discuss the taste of rice incessantly, and often eat it plain, with nothing to disguise its flavor. The rice at a sushi restaurant should be of the best quality, and Makoto’s certainly is.

Most of the classic sushi preparations are faultless here. Uni, the creamy sea urchin delicacy that makes novice sushi lovers swoon, is wonderful. You get a generous, fresh-tasting portion with an iodine tang. The toro (fatty tuna belly) is so tender and delicious that Makoto doesn’t like to garnish it with anything.

You will also want to try the giant hand rolls; the chefs fill these seaweed-wrapped cones with just about anything you can name from the Japanese kitchen. I had several, beginning with spicy tuna, moving on to spicy shrimp and finally to something called the jazz roll: yellowtail, tuna and daikon sprouts. All of them were top-notch.

Then you can progress to some of sushi’s more elaborate forms. Such as salmon skin roll: (cooked) salmon on the skin wrapped in a cone of crisp nori seaweed, garnished with daikon sprouts and green onions. You might also want to try the crab- and avocado-filled California roll, or the super-elaborate rainbow roll, made with several types of fish and roe.

Hot dishes from the kitchen may also be ordered at the sushi bar, which is something only a handful of our sushi bars permit. There is a great version of amaebi kara-age, sweet shrimp deep-fried in their shells and served with a hot-pepper dipping sauce.

The sushi bar classic called “dynamite” is a creamy casserole of seafood and flying fish roe baked in a scallop shell. You can have it made with black mussels or plump sea scallops, an unusual option.

A few things could be improved upon. The kitchen is quite slow during peak hours, which is especially annoying when dishes come to the table overcooked. For instance, I ordered garlic beef and got a seriously well-done steak topped with burned garlic. The vegetable tempura also tasted a little scorched, which is rare in an accomplished Japanese kitchen.

Makoto and his team of chefs are imperturbable, though. And if you become a regular at his engaging sushi counter, you’ll sit so close to him that you’re bound to catch his infectious smile, and little glitches like those probably won’t even register.

BE THERE

Makoto Sushi, 17920 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 708-7065. Dinner 5:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 5:30-11 p.m. Sunday. Parking lot in rear. Beer and wine. All major cards. Suggested dishes: tuna tataki, 8.50; amaebi kara-age, $5.50; uni, $4.95; spicy shrimp roll, $4.75.