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I RARELY SIT at the sushi bar when I dine at a Japanese restaurant. Though he's masterful to watch, I feel like I'm invading the sushi chef's artistic ground. It kind of makes me nervous. I mean, nobody paid to sit and watch Jackson Pollack drip paint. Do you think Monet had an audience when he was painting those haystacks?

Japanese cuisine is an easy mark when it comes to labeling food as art. The Japanese consider the table a palette and food a means to several necessary ends: Food should not only nourish the body and please the mouth, it should be aesthetically satisfying — enticing — as well. To the Japanese, food feeds body, soul and senses.

Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)
Typical of Taka Sushi's aesthetically pleasing approach, a mirugai (giant clam) salad is served in an ice bowl.
Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)
Like Monet's haystacks, except you eat them: Fried shrimp and scallops are wrapped in somen noodle needles.
Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)
Taka's hotate sashimi salad is a masterpiece of sliced scallops and kiwi.
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TAKA SUSHI CAFE 375 Pharr Road, Suite 600, Atlanta Overall rating: Food: Sushi and sashimi, with many modern twists and traditional takes like miso soup, hot appetizers like gyoza dumplings, okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes), soba and udon noodles and calamari with sea urchin. Service: Excellent, well-informed wait staff that is very low-key and more than willing to walk you through any section of the menu. Setting: Box-shaped space with less than 10 close-knit tables. More seating is available on the enclosed patio. The sushi bar is a four-seater, and it's cozy at that. The effort put into the décor — robin's egg blue walls, fish and nautical-themed wall hangings, music ranging from Sarah Vaughn to light jazz — just doesn't seem to take the edge off the starkness. Address, telephone: 375 Pharr Road, Suite 600, Atlanta, 404-869-2802 Hours: Dinner Monday through Thursday from 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5:30 to 11 p.m. Price range: Sashimi plates and cold appetizers fall between $8 and $22 (for a sashimi dinner), hot appetizers are $6 to $15. Sushi rolls are $4 to $12 for an eight-piece order. Desserts are $4 to $6.50. Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club Recommended dishes: Tai sashimi salad of Japanese red snapper with yuzu and lime and wasabi dressing, kanisu, scallop carpaccio with pears and kiwi, aji tataki (Japanese jackfish) with scallion and ginger, dream team rolls, salmon skin hand rolls Full bar or wine/beer: Yes Reservations: Accepted Vegetarian selections: Vegetable roll, miso soup, edamame, seaweed or cucumber salads, umeshiso roll Children: Very welcome Parking: Small lot Wheelchair access: Yes Smoking: On the patio only Noise level: Low Patio: Yes Takeout: Yes 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.

There are few spots in the Japanese kitchen that excel at this better than their meticulous, refined presentation of sushi. And there are few problems bigger for the modern sushi chef than that of pleasing the insatiable American palate for it.

Don't believe me? Look around, folks. Sushi is everywhere. I'm expecting to see it next at the cineplex with popcorn and peanut M&Ms.

And while some may adhere to the maxim that there's no such thing as bad sushi, believe me, there is.

You won't find it, however, at Taka Sushi Cafe. Takao Moriuchi, the Soto disciple who struck out on his own to do a brief stint at Bluepointe, then opened his own restaurant two years ago in this former Taco Mac location, has done nothing but mature over these past few years.

At first the fusion style at Bluepointe went a little too much to Takao's head, prompting the start of a tuna e-mail club (which he still maintains at Taka) obsessed with toro, sending devoted sushi diners rushing to Bluepointe every time a fatty shipment would come in like a run on a bank.

But at Taka the chef seems to have settled in (time and love will do that to you) and he works behind his tiny four-seat sushi bar quietly each night, with a diligence that makes you want to ooh and ahh when each dish makes it to the table.

And each dish makes it to the table. There are no two-hour waits like notorious Soto. There are always the same two fastidious servers pleasantly parading through the close-knit tables. They know the menu like the back of their hand, including the lovely list of sakes. Recommendations are a forte, and rarely have I been steered wrong.

Of course, Taka is never as crowded as Soto, either. And that is a shame, since his menu goes far beyond just sushi. His ability to combine a modern twist to sashimi with traditional Japanese postures makes for good eating. Something as simple as kanisu, a cold salad of snow crab and thinly sliced cucumber, becomes swanlike on the plate under Taka's touch, delicately centered, then perfectly offset with a dip of excellent soy sauce and wasabi.

Scallops are sliced so thin they are almost invisible, shingled with tawny pears and kiwi slices, then drizzled with an all but indiscernible reduction of Sauvignon Blanc that makes your mouth do a double-take: was it there or wasn't it? I'm not sure . . . let me try another bite to see.

Then there is the tai sashimi salad of red snapper that will make you forget your manners. It is so fresh. So real. The fish tastes like fish, yet so buttery. The plate is splashed with a bright dressing of lime and wasabi. Yuzu is there just to wake things up a bit. Sometimes there are cherry tomatoes. It's a little party on a plate and only you are invited, because you won't want to share.

If you decide to go the route of the omakase menu, be sure to ask for the buta kakuni, a pork shoulder that Taka pan sears, then stews in sake, soy sauce, ginger and garlic for about eight hours. Its tender, subtle flavors will melt in your mouth if you give them that much time before gobbling them down.

Taka's sushi rolls have become his calling card, and they are a little outlandish at times. Among less trepidatious offerings like the California and spicy tuna rolls are goofy bites like the "Diet Coke" roll with eel, cucumber and a striped topping of white and red tuna, and the "Copacabana" roll made with chopped scallops with mango, mayo, masago, scallion and a topping of thinly sliced mango. His salmon crunch roll uses Rice Krispies and Special K. I'm not sure I get it.

I do get how good a "dream team" roll starts and ends with tuna, salmon and hamachi, cucumber, cooked shrimp and smooth avocado. But a roll like this is almost a waste — so many great fish in just one bite. I'd rather Taka spread the love elsewhere. The nori on his hand rolls is not always as crisp as it should be, but the tidbits of fleshy salmon skin inside the hand roll could never disappoint.

Art can come in many forms, from van Gogh at the High Museum to the graffiti I saw on a MARTA underpass on my way to work this morning. Food falls into a category somewhere in between these two, depending on your perspective and who's doing the cooking.

When that person is Takao Moriuchi, art will bend itself into technique and then spring back again. Add a little Japanese tradition and some offbeat 'tude, and you've got Taka Sushi Cafe.