It’s a big bite of life

SOMETIMES you just have to go all out. It could be the works at a spa -- facial, manicure, pedicure, massage. It could be complete hand detailing for your car.

Or it could be omakase -- chef’s choice at a sushi bar.

At Sushi Dokoro Ki Ra La, a new sushi house on Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills, you can order omakase at a table or at the bar, but if you’re going all out, it’s really best done at the bar. After all, communing with the sushi chef is half the fun.

It can’t be easy performing in the space where Tomi Harase, trailblazing chef-owner of Nouveau Cafe Blanc, cooked for more than 10 years until he closed it in December 2003. But Nobu Shishido, the former chef-owner at Ta-ke Sushi in Hollywood who heads up the bar most nights, really steps up to the plate. (Occasionally, Shunji Nakano takes the lead chef position; at Sushi Dokoro, the former head chef at the Hump holds the fancy title “executive consultant.”)

Shishido is welcoming and easygoing, the furthest thing in the world from one of those sushi control freaks you find at a few of L.A.’s best-known sushi spots. There’s not an ounce of haughtiness in the joint, not a drop of attitude. Instead of watching you make a fool of yourself, he’ll tell you which dishes should be eaten as is, which dipped in shoyu, which would benefit from a bit of wasabi.

The night I stop in with a few friends, we take four of the six seats at the small bar. The decor is minimal in the tiny place, which has just a few small tables.

But the food is gorgeous, and it’s great fun watching Shishido. As a friendly server pours our junmai sake, Shishido finishes a plate by grating a big gray crystal over each of three sashimi bites: Bolivian sea salt, he tells us. He then places a bit of gold leaf on top of two of them, using long tweezers, with surgical precision. They’re spectacular: Spanish mackerel wrapped around finely julienned cucumbers and carrots; blue crab with avocado; and maybe the most sublime ankimo (monkfish liver) I’ve ever tasted. It’s moist and amazingly flavorful, sitting on an aromatic shiso leaf.

Next comes tuna: one rose of akami maguro (from the lean part of the tuna), another of toro (fatty tuna belly). I ask the chef if he has fresh wasabi available, and he becomes very excited, disappearing to the back and returning with something he describes as fresh-frozen. It’s almost as good as the fresh stuff, which is hard to come by. Fresh wasabi is expensive, and the sushi bars that do offer it usually charge extra for it, but not here.

Sweet shrimp come next. These are pristine Santa Barbara spot prawns, served raw on textured squid, with a judicious smattering of prawn roe on top. The tempuraed heads follow.

A scallop duo is unusual -- two preparations served side by side on the scallop’s big, round flat shells. On one side sit slices of scallop sashimi, with a big dot of yuzu-pepper sauce on top, plus asparagus tips, with spicy mayo and a wafer-thin piece of dried, fried Spanish mackerel. On the other side is cooked scallop offal, which is a lot better than it sounds -- the peduncle, the liver and so on, all cooked in the shell with a blowtorch right there at the bar.

Halibut sashimi with a smoky, deeply flavored ponzu sauce makes a splash. Many sushi chefs make it a point of honor never to divulge their ponzu secrets, but Shishido, when questioned, explains that he ferments the ponzu for months to get this deep flavor. Blue crab with clear seaweed wrapped around it comes next.

And then onto sushi. After salmon roe with a quail egg on top comes Kobe beef cooked just barely with the blowtorch. That one bite is soft and rich as butter. Last, Shishido presents three rolls: Sea eel wrapped in avocado with burdock and really fresh seaweed is the standout.

If the pacing were less than perfect, we might not have room for dessert, but we’re feeling great. Two of us get mochi ice cream. The green tea version is lightly flavored with lavender; the passion fruit is lovely too. All are covered with delicate, very thin mochi skin. I opt for the kabocha creme brulee. So unusual! It has a marvelous texture, and it’s not too sweet -- very sophisticated.

Like this place. The whole experience feels perfectly orchestrated, spot-on in every way. We all feel wonderfully coddled and cared for.

Will we pay a lot? Yes, we will. But oh, is it worth it.

brenner@latimes.com

S. Irene Virbila is on vacation.

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Sushi Dokoro Ki Ra La

Where: 9777 S. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: Noon to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 5 to 10 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Sake, shochu, beer and wine. Valet parking after 5:30 p.m.

Price: Omakase lunch, $65 and up; omakase dinner, $95 and up.

Info: (310) 275-9003; Call in advance to request omakase.