Evening Edge

Atsushi Hayakawa's smile animates his face. The corners of his mouth rise, and his eyes twinkle with infectious merriment. You are suddenly in on some joke with him. Laughing at ... what, you're not sure, but happy to be facing this cheerful soul across a counter.

Fans of chef Hayakawa have followed him from restaurant to restaurant. The Americans who call him "Art" and the Japanese who know him as "Haya-chan" first met Hayakawa at Duluth's Haru Ichiban in the late 1990s, when other sushi chefs around town didn't flaunt their personalities. He couldn't hide his. The first time I sat at his sushi bar and asked him for recommendations, he responded with comic shock.

Jessica McGowan, jmcgowan@ajc.com/AJC (ENLARGE)

Atsushi Hayakawa plates squid sashimi at his recently opened restaurant, Sushi House Hayakawa, on Buford Highway.

John Kessler writes food features and a column about food and more for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution E-mail John Kessler Recent Kessler columns Your fool-proof checklist for Thanksgiving  Hours of low-temperature cooking yield tender, juicy meat  Different things to sample on my new dining menu         More John Kessler Related: John Kessler's blog: Food & More John Kessler's recipes Meridith Ford Goldman's Table Talk Jeanne Besser's Feeding Frenzy Evening Edge Atlanta Restaurant reviews and search Recipes from Atlanta restaurants Favorite Atlanta recipes

"I thought you looked like a California roll person!" he said with a laugh. Before long I was eating the most tender octopus I had ever tried and salmon roe that he had marinated in the sweet cooking sake called mirin, mellowing its flavor.

Hayakawa next showed up at MF Sushibar in Midtown. Amid the slick veneer of that restaurant, his easygoing visage was always a welcome sight — like that one chill friend who can make a power-scene party fun.

Once, when I was I eating there as a dining critic and trying to go unnoticed by the staff, he winked and slipped me a note across the sushi bar: "It's Art Hayakawa. I know you. You should try the golden eye snapper."

After his stint at MF, Hayakawa fell off the radar for a few years. Or, more precisely, he fell off my radar. Rumor had it that he wanted to open his own place, but I couldn't get any confirmation from anyone who knew him.

Three months ago I heard about a new sushi bar opening on Buford Highway, checked out the Web site (www.atlantasushibar.com) and there was Art, his face framed inside the curve of a massive fish collar he was holding. He looked like the fish version of a lion tamer.

When I first walked into Sushi House Hayakawa, it took Art about two seconds to recognize me. As a former critic, sure, but really more as a former customer.

He sat me and my friend at the counter. What were we drinking? Sake? Shochu? He had the bottles of Japanese spirits displayed on walls behind him, and he pulled them off to describe them.

We settled on a sake — one, two, three cups — and all toasted together.

Art started preparing a few of his specialties. He is no self-styled artist who painstakingly fusses over garnish. Rather, he works with speedy confidence, his knife flashing, his joy evident in that moment he passes the plate across the counter.

The cooking is real-deal Japanese, with few concessions to today's sushi bar trendiness. That means if you are a California roll person (whether you look the part or not), this won't be your favorite restaurant. Fat chunks of monkfish liver in a tart, not-too-sweet ponzu sauce are followed by a small glass bowl of marinated salmon roe lavished over rice like hot fudge on a sundae. Next up: sea eel (anago), which comes in 6-inch-long fillets, just like in Japan. Art wants you to appreciate the food but not admire it.

The evening went quickly. Eating, chatting, finishing the evening with a fine cup of green tea edged with the savory flavor of toasted brown rice — it all felt like part of a whole.

The whole, of course, was Art Hayakawa's personality, written all over this restaurant in every detail. It smiles at you, and you smile back.

Sushi House Hayakawa, 5979 Buford Highway (International Plaza), 770-986-0010.

KOREAN HOT SPOT:It still stands mostly empty, but the new Point Berkeley International Village in Duluth already boasts some game-changing Korean restaurants. This massive mixed-use development at the corner of North Berkeley Lake Road and Buford Highway has a branch of JBSD Well-Bean Tofu (678-584-0057), an international chain of soondubu (tofu soup) houses with branches in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the West Coast.

The namesake soup comes in all kinds of funky flavors, including curry, chitterling and ham and cheese. We went with the basic seafood, which was the best version I've ever tried. On another diner's advice, we also tried Kimcheejjim — a huge communal hotpot filled with tofu, pork belly, shiitake mushrooms and truly great kimchee that comes out as a full-length wedge of Chinese cabbage before a waitress reduces it to bits with scissors.

A few doors down sits Bonjuk (770-232-1944), another worldwide chain. This one specializes in rice porridge (jook) — a soupy gruel flecked with everything from seafood to pumpkins, walnuts and abalone. You get a big bowl of the stuff served with side dishes and a sweet plum drink.

If you can't eat in, the to-go bag is the fanciest I've seen outside of a department store. This retail center will be anchored by H & Y Marketplace, an 80,000-square-foot Korea-centric supermarket with an emphasis on natural and organic products. (2645 N. Berkeley Lake Road, Duluth).

A WINE FIND: Wolf Mountain Vineyards, mentioned in this column two weeks ago, may lay claim to being the first Georgia winery to produce methode champenoise sparkling wines from vinifera grapes (i.e., traditional European varietals), but Chesser Island Winery of Folkston makes such wines from muscadines and blueberries.

For information on these wines and where to purchase them, go to www.chesserislandwinery.com.