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This yakitori bar scores high marks as both a cultural adventure and a dining experience. The tightly packed room's focus is the three-sided maplewood bar, ringed by comfortable club-style dining chairs. Within the bar stand the chefs, with their charcoal grills and the yakitori cold case, where varieties of skewered chicken parts are on display. (Skip the few tables; the action's at the bar.) Traditional yakitori chefs eschew complicated seasoning; here, 'simple' means market-fresh organic chicken and choice vegetables flown in daily from Japan, from which an astonishing variety of bird parts (neck, gizzards, heart, liver, tenderloin, breast, and wing) are trimmed, cut, and skewered on bamboo, in a tasty, near-endless parade of small plates: Savor duck and chicken meatballs, quail breast, grilled fruity little tomatoes, crispy leeks, earthy mushrooms, and a heavenly oyako-don. The omakase dinner is a market-driven investment; try it anyway. And don't miss the final bow: An exquisite shiso-leaf (Japanese basil) sorbet, like a superfine granita with a subtle, savory kick. — Stanley Mieses

Omakase, $65; soboro oyako don, $15; chicken wing, $5; shiso-leaf sorbet, $5