At last, fascinating fusion

We’d barely sat down when my guest snatched up the menu and pored over it, skipping the cold dishes and greedily scanning the hot dishes. No catfish? he asked, eyebrow arched.

Don’t let Shiro hear you, I hissed as he pouted, just a little.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d already explained on the way over that at the new Orris, Hideo Yamashiro wasn’t having any. The poor guy’s been a slave to that deep-fried whole catfish for years. He cooked it at Chinois, and then 17 years ago when he opened his own restaurant, Shiro in South Pasadena, nobody would let him retire it from the menu. In fact, that single dish still is so requested at Shiro that he’s more or less given up trying to seduce his customers into ordering something new and, for him, more interesting to cook.

This little restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard is his escape in more ways than one. He’s landed a choice spot on a block in the old Japanese neighborhood filled with noodle shops, boba parlors and smart casual cafes. On the corner is a stylish shabu shabu counter watched over by a painting of a frowning Felix the Cat. Students fill up on pho at the Vietnamese cafe next door. And down the street, there’s a line out the door of tiny Sawtelle Kitchen.

This is ground zero for L.A.’s home-grown Franco-Japanese fusion cooking. Cafe Katsu started out here. And Sawtelle Kitchen and 2117 across the street are frequent haunts of wine buffs who arrive with their bottles, share a glass with the chef, and settle in for a bargain-priced evening of eating and drinking. The vibe is urban and young, like a Tokyo neighborhood set down in the middle of West Los Angeles.

And at Orris, the chef is trying on accents -- Italian, French, mostly, a word or two of Chinese. Wearing an unconventional toque, an African hat he bought at a store that went out of business down the street from Shiro, he’s darting from one end of the open kitchen to the other, working side by side with his young, enthusiastic crew instead of hidden in the back. Their friends drop in. His old customers, too. There are no reservations, so the tables just keep turning.

Ruby slices of beet are lined up on a skinny white platter, their sweet earthy flavor set off by slivers of Basque sheep’s milk cheese and a few drops of olive oil. Spring rolls burst with chunks of scallop and shrimp in a crisp gold jacket, the plain taste of the seafood filling played against a juicy yuzu sauce.

If you feel like a salad, Shiro finds a lovely balance in sharp, emerald arugula and the pale crunch of endive embellished with prosciutto and Parmesan shavings. Sometimes he sets fresh Dungeness crab on a salad of julienned cucumbers in a ginger-sparked dressing.

A grilled romaine salad is oddly compelling, its hearts of romaine suffused with gentle smoke. But I’ll take his trio of plump little crab cakes, almost all crabmeat with very little filler. The taste is pure and sweet.

Halibut transformed

I tried the fried chicken a la Japonaise one night, which is more like tempura chicken, and found it disappointingly bland. Fried chicken needs real crunch. One taste of his halibut tempura, though, and I recognized it for what it is: this restaurant’s signature dish, the veritable catfish. It is fingers of firm-fleshed halibut cloaked in a light batter to dip in grains of Okinawan sea salt and/or a smoldering ocher curry powder fired with cumin and cayenne. It’s fireworks in the mouth.

In his French mode, Shiro turns out dainty grilled quail with white beans simmered with sage leaves, and a fabulous version of potatoes Dauphinois served in its own little casserole, nice and loose, with the cream sliding off the sliced potatoes.

On the Italian side, he has a ravioli that’s Italian in name only, filled with a light shrimp mousse and extravagantly sauced in shiitake and cream.

At Orris, Shiro has put together a small, manageable menu: half a dozen cold dishes and about the same number of hot dishes, plus a page of seasonal specials that he’ll change, depending on what he finds at the market or what he feels like cooking.

It’s odd, though, that almost two years after A.O.C. showed how well the small-plates concept could work in Los Angeles, and long after New York and San Francisco have explored every aspect of small plates from French to Basque to Moroccan and Asian, we’re becoming newly enamored of the idea.

Maybe that’s because it seems to suit everybody’s scattered lifestyle in a city where you can’t get away from driving. It’s fast food for the adventurous, highly motivated set.

It’s awfully appealing, before a movie, to slip into this casual place decorated with abstract contemporary prints, and order a glass of wine with some Italian cured meats or a small plate of roasted Sonoma duck. Serving the duck at room temperature seems to concentrate its flavor. Instead of mustard, it comes with a dab of sharp, salty -- and completely delicious -- yuzu chile paste.

I’d also go for a bowl of Prince Edward Island mussels or cherrystone clams steamed in white wine and served with plenty of the delicious garlicky juices. Bread, a short length of Wonder Bread-soft baguette, arrives with it, about the only time you’ll get any bread here.

But this isn’t really sturdy enough to stand up to dipping, and a rustic loaf would serve the cheeses better too.

I’m happy enough, though, to get any bread at all, especially since Shiro doesn’t believe in rice, at least not for this restaurant and his idea of tapas.

The wine list seems to have been put together without considering what would go best with this food. Chardonnay, oaked or not, doesn’t really work with most of the dishes, nor does Viognier. They need Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Chablis, Vouvray -- wines that have a mineral edge and a high-wire acidity.

In reds, Rhones and Cabernets are going to obliterate the more delicate flavors. What’s required are softer, silkier, food-friendly wines -- in other words, more Pinot Noirs.

That said, every bottle on Shiro’s one-page list is also available by the glass, turning the place into an ipso facto wine bar. Of course, there’s sake too. But why doesn’t he have Sherry if he’s doing tapas?

At Orris, Shiro doesn’t have the space or the staff to do elaborate desserts, so he’s made a smart choice. He’s serving ice creams from L.A.’s own, and excellent, Ciao Bella: a single fat snowball of any of three or four flavors, all blessedly shy on the sugar.

Vanilla is freckled with vanilla bean for a true vanilla taste; coffee has the mellow flavor of cafe au lait; and my favorite, the blackberry-Cabernet sorbet, ends things on a refreshing and not-too-sweet note.

For someone who has been cooking the same dishes for years, Orris and its unconventional menu must be sheer bliss. You can see the spring in Shiro’s step. Though he’s still playing it a bit safe, it’s a good kind of safe, with appealing, crisply executed dishes at reasonable prices.

If he’s having this much fun now, I can’t help but think that as soon as he catches his breath, Shiro is going to burst out with more wild and crazy dishes that he’s been itching to cook for years. At age 57, he’s just getting his second wind.

*

Orris

Rating: **

Location: 2006 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 268-2212.

Ambience: Bright modern cafe with a lively, casual atmosphere and a menu of small Asian and fusion plates, most less than $10.

Service: Enthusiastic and efficient.

Price: Cold dishes, $5.50 to $11.50; hot dishes, $6.50 to $9; desserts, $4.

Best dishes: Seafood spring roll, ravioli, grilled quail with white beans, crab cakes, roasted Sonoma duck breast, lamb loin carpaccio, steamed mussels or clams, halibut tempura, potatoes Dauphinois, Ciao Bella ice cream.

Wine list: Just over 20 selections, which are all available by the glass. But not enough of them truly complement the food. Corkage, $15.

Best table: The one in the front corner.

Details: Open 6 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday,

5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday. Beer and wine. Valet parking, $2.50 in lot behind the restaurant Thursday through Saturday.

No reservations.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.