Inspired by the tastes of Tokyo

TOKYO — Lee Hefter barrels through the streets of the Ginza district on a cool spring night.

He has persuaded a pastry cook to lead the way to Shotai-en, an obscure restaurant specializing in Japanese beef.

Here it is, motions the cook, indicating an office building, before returning to his pastry shop.

An elevator to the ninth floor, a quick exchange with the host, and Hefter, the executive chef at the restaurants Spago and Cut in Beverly Hills, Calif., is ordering beef sashimi, beef tartare, two kinds of salad, vegetables for grilling, shrimp on skewers, three kinds of Wagyu beef, Korean-style marinated beef and one — no, two — orders of tripe.

The waiter is still scribbling as he walks away.

"We should have tried the liver, too!" Hefter says.

For the past eight years, Hefter, 39, has been traveling to Japan for inspiration, bringing culinary ideas to his restaurants back home. He tries to make his annual trip during sakura zensen, the cherry blossom season.

Six days in Japan with Hefter and his wife, Sharon — and his insatiable appetite and curiosity — is also a crash course in sushi, tempura, yakiniku and kaiseki, culinary styles that define Japanese dining but rarely are seen in their pure form elsewhere.

Taking it all in

Whether it's Tokyo or Kyoto or points in between, food is an obsession in Japan.

There are sushi bars, soba stands, yakitori bars, French pastry shops, tofu specialists and shabu-shabu joints. There are tonkatsu-ya, the restaurants specializing in deep-fried pork cutlets; tamago shops for sweetened omelets, and unagi-ya, freshwater eel restaurants.

Vending machines offer 10 kinds of tea, hot and cold.

Some places are for eating on the run — like the noisy ramen stands where patrons stand and slurp. Others are perfectly quiet and spiritual, like the kaiseki restaurants where Japan's best chefs practice their art.

"It stimulates the creative process," Hefter says. "I let it digest for a month and then go back to my notes and get inspired again."

Hefter plots his trips with precision. He gets tips from other chefs. He talks with chefs in Japan. He checks a Japanese food Web site,www.bento.com.

"It's a lot of work," he says. "And then you can't always get into the restaurant."

On this trip, Hefter, who co-owns Cut steakhouse in Beverly Hills with Wolfgang Puck, starts with Kobe beef, one of the hundreds of types of artisanal beef in Japan. There are 41 prefectures that raise Wagyu cattle and produce their own tender, marbled, meticulously graded beef that winds up in restaurants such as Aragawa, where one steak can cost $1,400.

Tonight, Hefter wants to check out yakiniku — the Japanese version of Korean barbecue. The restaurant, Shotai-en, is relatively inexpensive. The tab will come to about $30 a person. And Hefter has ordered a lot.

Almost instantly, the beef starts coming to the table. Hefter takes charge, dabbing slivers of raw beef with chile paste and onion, and passing them around.

"You only live once!" he says.

Seas of sea fare

The next day, Hefter heads for Tsukiji Market, the world's largest fish market — 2,000 tons of fish move through here six days a week. It's the best place to understand why a Japanese sushi restaurant is a travel destination.

If it swims, it's here — turtles, eels, clams, spiny lobsters, shrimp, silvery needlefish, crabs, abalone, firefly squid with googly eyes, octopus and stalls filled with uni, sea urchin roe that looks like slices of ripe apricot.

And, of course, tuna.

Tsukiji's tuna auction draws fishermen from around the world. At dawn, the auction is in full swing. As one row of enormous tunas, steam rising from their icy skins, is sold, another is moved in. Motorized flatbeds bring more fish. This is where the city's sushi chefs shop.

On this trip, Hefter will eat sushi once: at Sushidokoro Shimizu, an eight-seat sushi bar that has Tokyo buzzing.

Shimizu is in a narrow alley, amid apartment doorways and houseplants set out in the rain. Eight stools, a smooth pale counter and, behind it, formidable chef Kunihiro Shimizu.

Shimizu is preparing wasabi paste. He rules his space without a word. An assistant brings the rice, a gorgeous rosy color.

Shimizu starts preparing giant squid, scoring and cross-hatching the flesh. There is no long list of fish to choose from; Shimizu serves only seafood in season. As much attention is paid to the rice as to the fish; it is seasoned with a dose of kasuzu vinegar, and the grains are so flavorful that different varieties are used to complement different fish. There are no crazy sushi rolls; actually, there are no rolls at all.

Shimizu presents the squid, then maguro, the lean tuna belly, and chu-toro, the fattier belly. There's kohada, a spring specialty, the lightly picked Japanese shad, salted and marinated in vinegar, and needlefish that looks like a sparkling silver chain.

Shimizu continues, picking up hamaguri, a reddish braised clam, and salmon roe so fresh it's like eating sea foam.

After the meal, Shimizu poses for pictures with Hefter.

Tasty tempura

Cooking vegetables requires the hand of an artist. Hefter knows the man: Fumio Kondo, tempura chef extraordinaire.

"It's amazing how many people go through life thinking they've had tempura," Hefter says.

Kondo, the chef's eponymous tempura bar in the Ginza, has only a dozen seats. Kondo whisks the tempura batter, quickly dipping fish or vegetables into it, and dropping them into hot oil. He lays the tempura on sheets of paper on trays.

Prawns, succulent and sweet, the crust perfect; fat pieces of asparagus; half-moons of lotus root; kisu, a delicate white fish; taranome, a mountain vegetable that looks like celery and has a barely bitter taste.

"You can tell the guy's a master at what he does. He really attacks it like an art," says Hefter. The batter is thin, "just a coating to protect it while it's frying. He lets the ingredients shine through."

Hefter asks if baby eels are available. Kondo smiles and, ah, here they are, each a tad wider than a strand of spaghetti, bundled with a shiso leaf and fried. Hefter's in heaven.