A RAW DEAL?; HEALTH INSPECTORS PUT JAPANESE-STYLE RESTAURANT DISPLAY ON ICE.

Byline: Jason Takenouchi Staff Writer

Health inspectors call it a hazard, but Sushi Mac co-owner Seiji ``Spike'' Hara and his supporters say the inspectors suffer from culinary ignorance.

Before the county health department clamped down, Hara's Sherman Oaks restaurant on Ventura Boulevard pulled in huge crowds thanks in no small part to his fast-moving display of raw fish. Instead of waiting for orders to be prepared, Hara's customers simply picked out what they wanted from a conveyor that snaked around his small restaurant.

The system, known as rotary sushi, is an increasingly popular service style that is common in Japan and has been used in some Los Angeles area restaurants for years.

But Hara's rotary sushi dream ended abruptly when inspectors from the county Department of Health Services who approved the operation before its February opening, decided in October that his rotary is a health hazard.

Health services inspectors say Sushi Mac's rotary system does not keep fish cold enough, a decision that forced Hara to pull the sushi from his rotary last month.

Instead of edible art, Sushi Mac's conveyor now carries only photographs, something that Sushi Mac manager Steve Fukumoto said is neither appealing nor profitable. Since taking fish off the rotary, sales have plummeted by about 40 percent at the 25-seat restaurant, he said.

``It's really killing us,'' Fukumoto said one recent evening, looking over a restaurant with just a couple of customers and dozens of empty seats. ``We're usually packed.''

County environmental health specialist Terrance Powell said the problem at Sushi Mac is that its rotary falls under the definition of a ``storage'' device because sushi stays on the conveyor for an unspecified amount of time. Under current regulations, food in such a storage unit must be kept at 45 degrees Fahrenheit or below to deter food-borne illness, he said.

``I'm not saying they can't put it on the conveyor belt now,'' Powell said. ``What I'm saying is that if they have it on the conveyor belt, it has to stay at 45 degrees. Our past inspections at the site have found the product to be far above the required temperatures, which we consider to be hazardous.''

But Sherman Oaks resident Jeff Weinstock, a frequent Sushi Mac customer, said health department inspectors need to do more research.

Sushi is commonly served at close to room temperature, and similar rotary sushi bars are commonplace in Japan, he said.

``They're going to run him out of business over something they have no knowledge about,'' Weinstock said. ``If this were truly hazardous, people would be dropping dead of food poisoning all over Japan.''

To further complicate matters, Hara opened another rotary-style Sushi Mac in the Beverly Center in October, just days before health inspectors cracked down in Sherman Oaks. Hara said his new restaurant is not using its rotary system yet because it is unclear if it will be allowed.

Hara said a preopening inspection of his Sherman Oaks restaurant by a health services sanitarian has added to the confusion. He said the Feb. 4 report seems to delineate safety limits of the rotary.

``Maximum amount of time on conveyor is 2 hrs.,'' an inspector wrote in the report. ``Every packaged sushi dish must be labeled with time put on conveyor.''

Sushi Mac eventually instituted a labeling system, but restaurant manager Fukumoto said the health department said it was insufficient.

Health department officials are working with Sushi Mac to develop a compliant rotary system. The process has already taken two months, though, and Powell, the county health official, said any plan they design would still have a ``very solid'' 45 degree requirement.

Hara said he feels frustrated by the situation.

The Woodland Hills resident said his restaurant has struggled for months to meet the demands of health inspectors who, in his opinion, introduced a different regulatory hurdle every time they inspected Sushi Mac. Inspectors made nine different visits in October alone, he said.

``I just want an answer,'' said Hara, who saved up 10 years of earnings as a sushi chef around Southern California to pay for his half of the $160,000 restaurant, including $50,000 for the rotary alone. ``If they (inspectors) had said `no' in the beginning, I would not have opened it.''

The situation is particularly galling, he said, because other Japanese restaurants in the county use uncovered rotary systems with impunity. For example, Tarzana's Cho Cho San restaurant, in operation for over 10 years, uses a similar system, with customers picking random dishes off the rotary.

Powell countered that other rotary sushi restaurants in the county do not have ongoing problems with temperature.

``If there is another restaurant that is doing it in a display fashion,'' he said, ``either they are keeping their product in the required temperatures by the monitoring system they have, or they are secondarily not using it as a display system.''

Yuko Akimoto, owner of the Los Angeles rotary sushi restaurant Frying Fish, said chefs label each plate of sushi with color-coded stickers that show when the product was made. Old or questionable product is removed promptly, Akimoto said.

``We've been doing that since we started,'' Akimoto said. ``We have a target of 15 minutes.''

But Fukumoto said it's nearly impossible for any rotary-style restaurant to maintain the required temperature on an uncovered conveyor. And if they did, the sushi would be far too cold to eat.

``As soon as you take it out of the case, it's already out of temperature,'' he said. ``There's no way they're keeping their sushi below 41 degrees.''

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2 photos

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) Steve Fukumoto, manager of Sushi Mac, shows the rotary system that no longer moves food around the restaurant. At left, chefs prepare food for 40 percent fewer customers, says Fukumoto.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer