A Place to Waste Not, Want More Skewered Chicken

In West Los Angeles the stretch of Sawtelle between Santa Monica and Olympic boulevards is a truncated version of Little Tokyo where sushi bars, karaoke parlors and shabu shabu joints jostle for space with trendy teahouses and 2117, a French-Japanese cafe that’s popular with wine buffs because they can bring their own bottles.

Just north of Olympic Boulevard, on the west side of street, a tiny storefront is squeezed between two neon-bright strip malls. Look for the large white cloth banner painted with a chicken in bold black brushstrokes. That’s the front of Yakitoriya, a tiny Japanese restaurant specializing in yakitori, or skewered grilled meats. Here the specialty is every part of the chicken.

Duck your head under the door curtain, and you’ll see 10 or so tables and an L-shaped counter. Behind it is a single narrow grill a few feet long and the span of a bamboo skewer wide. A young cook in a baseball cap worn backward works the grill, turning the skewers with a practiced hand, throwing salt onto the meat before he sets it over the fierce heat of the Japanese hardwood charcoal.

A glass case on top of the counter holds some of the skewers on offer. Basically, it’s almost any part of the chicken you can name at $2 a stick, plus a choice of half a dozen vegetables threaded onto a skewer and sashed with a strip of chicken. You can either order set combinations at a slight discount, or skewer by skewer. Check the specials posted on the wall, too, where you may find duck stick some nights.

Yakitoriya feels like so many such places in Japan, a dive basically, but with great food. Everything is expertly grilled, the breast and thigh especially succulent when the edges are charred from the ferocious heat of the charcoal. I love the little gizzards threaded on a skewer, but even better may be the heart, what the Peruvians call anticucho. There are tender little chicken meatballs, too, and chicken wings, even chicken skin and quail eggs.

I could make a meal of the just the vegetables, especially the sweet Japanese scallions, little green Japanese hot peppers and meaty shiitake mushroom caps. Okra is a revelation grilled, because it doesn’t have any of the slimy quality that puts many people off this interesting vegetable.

At Yakitoriya it pays to eat earlier rather than later, as I found out one night when I came in after 8. The kitchen was already out of popular items such as the chicken breast and chicken skin. But I did discover duck breast on the menu: It’s probably half a breast grilled and then sliced and fanned out on the plate the way the French do it, and comes with a dab of hot mustard and a pinch of minced green chiles moistened with yuzu. The combination is wonderful.

To drink, there are several Japanese beers. I think Kirin’s bitter edge is ideal with the grilled chicken. I like the way the cooks pace the meal at Yakitoriya, with each skewer coming separately snatched right off the grill so you can appreciate its flavor. Savored this way, it’s astonishing how many skewers you can eat.

Yakitoriya does one thing and does it very well. And there’s always room for more places like this in your restaurant repertoire.

Yakitoriya, 11301 Olympic Blvd., No 101, Los Angeles; (310) 479-5400. Open Wednesdays through Mondays (closed Tuesdays) for dinner only. Chicken and vegetable skewers, $2 each; grilled duck breast, $7. Street or lot parking.