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IT IS JUST FOOD. I remind myself of this fact every time I reach for something too lofty to say about what I stuff into my face. Dining is not a matter of stars and symphonies but of beef and broccoli.

So I'll make no soaring pronouncements about Soto Japanese Restaurant, which reopened several months ago after a nearly year-long hiatus. In describing this food, I could easily torture metaphors. I could dust off the superlative adjectives languishing on the top shelf of my vocabulary. I could even make up words. Like, supernalrific.

Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)
Chef Sotohiro Kosugi masterfully creates a lattice of slivered lotus root inside a ring, stuffed with lobster and uni mousse. He tops it off with smoked sea urchin and caviar and surrounds it with a kaleidoscope of cucumber slices.
Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)
The dobin mushi soup is a clear, clean dashi broth. When you open the lid to the pot, you find the shrimp, shiitakes and ginkgo nuts hidden inside.
Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)
You'll wait about an hour in eager anticipation for the sashimi sampler, but after it arrives, so will bliss.
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SOTO JAPANESE RESTAURANT 3330 Piedmont Road N.E. Atlanta Overall rating: Food: Some of the best sushi and contemporary Japanese food you can find anywhere Service: Better than before the restaurant closed. But consider yourself warned: The pace of the meal can be very, very slow Setting: A spare, clean space inside a Buckhead strip mall Address, telephone: 3330 Piedmont Road N.E., 404-233-2005 Hours: Dinner: 6-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 6 p.m.-midnight Fridays-Saturdays Price range: A variety of small plates and sushi items range from $6-$16; count on spending about $50 per person to eat and drink well Credit cards: All major cards accepted Recommended dishes: Dobin-mushi soup, steamed lobster uni mousse, live lobster sashimi, garlic-pepper toro, sashimi sampler Wine list: Very limited. The restaurant uses good stemware but only offers a few unimaginative wines by the glass. There are a few country sakes Full bar or wine/beer: Wine/beer Reservations: Yes Vegetarian selections: Some Children: Not a great idea until they are supernally patient and love fish Parking: Self parking in lot Wheelchair access: Full Smoking: Not permitted Noise level: Moderate Patio: No Takeout: No KEY TO RATINGS Outstanding. Sets the standard for fine dining in the region. Excellent. One of the best in the Atlanta area. Very good. Merits a drive if you're looking for this kind of dining. Good. A worthy addition to its neighborhood, but food may be hit or miss. RESTAURANTS THAT DO NOT meet these criteria may be rated FAIR or POOR.

But I will merely say that I am grateful to have Soto — one of my all-time favorite restaurants — back in business.

Chef Sotohiro Kosugi closed his namesake sushi place in April of 2003 — both to remodel and to take a break from the high-stress business of standing at the sushi bar and working as fast as he could, six nights a week. To his fans' chagrin, his summer break stretched into 10 months. He didn't answer many calls in the interim and reopened without advance word.

What opened was, more or less, the same old Soto. The room felt spruced up, with decorative glass plates displayed in a recessed alcove on the wall. And the specials list offered some intriguing new options.

But two essential things remained the same. One: the food — as remarkable as ever for the clarity of its flavors and for the chef's unstinting dedication to flawless execution. Two: the wait. You may spend 45 hungry minutes watching Soto prepare other people's food. Or you may sit an hour or more, sink into a hypoglycemic coma and be quietly swept outdoors.

I like to go early, before I'm too hungry, to beat the rush. With luck, I can get a seat at the horseshoe-shaped sushi bar and watch Soto work. I'll sip my preferred cold sake, Bishonen, eat the few edamame offered and listen to the classical music playing. No la-la, easy listening, Pachelbel's Canon for Soto. He plays Wagner.

The new, improved wait staff warns you that the cold sushi and appetizers take time and suggest you order some hot food if you need something sooner.

I do. I order the dobin mushi soup — a clear, clean dashi broth that you pour from a metal dobin teapot into tiny cups. Fish shooters. When you open the lid to the pot, you find the shrimp, shiitakes and ginkgo nuts hidden inside.

A fresh New Zealand langoustine arrives split and broiled under a thick coat of shiitakes and Japanese mayonnaise that keeps its juices in the shell. Nothing is easier to like.

But I resist the fried fish and tempura. I'd rather sit with a gnawing feeling in my gut than cloud my mouth with deep-fried food before the cold dishes arrive.

Soto works so intently that you can practically feel the quickening beat of his heart across the counter as the orders come in. With his steel chopsticks glinting, he pulls chunks of lobster from a plastic tub. With a dull gray knife, he slivers shiso leaf into silk thread.

A kitchen aide brings a plate with a kaleidoscope round of overlapping cucumber slices, and Soto places a ring of PVC pipe in the center. He starts packing ingredients into the center.

Aah, it's for me. Iron Chef Soto has created a lattice of slivered lotus root inside the ring and now he's adding — what is it? — lobster! Yes, and what's next? Uni (sea urchin) mousse. OK, he's overlapping the lotus root over the top, he removes the steel ring and he finishes it with smoked sea urchin and caviar.

I wish I could tell you that I slowly savored this creation like Kaga-san in his sequined cape. But, alas, I was more like a Rottweiler to a pork chop. How nice to fill my mouth with the sea-splashed flavor of uni without the clingy texture of its raw state. And how well that tender lobster and that wisp of smoke frames it.

Other chefs love uni. With Soto, it seems the feeling's mutual. Sea urchin has no better friend.

I always want an order of shima aji carpaccio at Soto. It's a starburst of slivered jack fish bathed in Soto's signature ginger-truffle soy sauce. Soto is the only chef I willingly order truffle oil from.

And I always get sushi. Just plain sushi because Soto has the finest rice in town; it falls into grains with only the heat of your mouth. He sources yellowtail and bluefin toro that makes you stop in mid-bite to feel its sweet unctuousness on your teeth, on your gums, on your tongue.

One night I watch him take out a plate with nice compartments on it and prepare separate miniature sashimi baubles for each one. The process took a half hour and brought the restaurant to a standstill. This was what he simply called "sashimi sampler" on the menu. I desperately wanted it, but I had already eaten.

So I returned a few days later and arrived so early the restaurant was nearly empty. I ordered the sashimi sampler and waited an hour and fifteen minutes until another party was ready for its own sashimi sampler. Eons seemed to pass. I half expected to look outside and find glaciers encroaching on Phipps Plaza.

The platter finally arrived, all mine, and this time I stopped and savored. Slivered kelp-cured scallops with lemon mint. Red snapper seared to a char on one side and perfectly raw on the other. Clam julienne with sweet mustard miso dressing. Toro coated in a thick, sweet nuta sauce. Smoked uni rolled in powdered uni.

And hamachi, that had been cut into two little tiles, no bigger than sugar cubes. Soto had painstakingly scored each one with tiny crosshatches. I put one inside the piehole. It opened and swept across my tongue like the flagellae of some creature on the way to unseen depths.

Why, I don't know, but I have a sudden existential moment. How did my life's trajectory deposit me at this sushi bar in Atlanta, Ga., in 2004?

Maybe that's Sotohiro Kosugi's brilliance as a chef. His food isn't stars and moons. It's here, now.