Restaurants: Zen Box Izakaya looks to the East

Walk into the latest new gastropub in Minneapolis, and here's what you won't find: an ironic slider, a tail-to-snout charcuterie parade, a farmstead cheese list as long as your arm, a chalkboard menu, or any other requisite of the genre.

Instead, Zen Box Izakaya looks East for inspiration, taking its culinary cues from Japan's pubs (izakaya is the Japanese word for casual, after-work bars that serve food) and home cooks.

Kudos to owners Lina Goh and John Ng for avoiding the yawn-inducing model followed by the majority of local Japanese restaurants. Those with a hankering for sushi, for example, must dine elsewhere, and it's almost a letdown to see something as familiar as edamame on the menu.

That's because the husband-wife team -- along with chef Junji Umezu -- formulate their one-of-a-kind corner bar on tofu and tripe, fermented soybeans and raw tuna. Oh, that tuna. It's cut into thick, velvety, ruby-red shears and becomes the building block for a gorgeous poke, the fish splashed with sesame oil and dressed with sprightly radish sprouts and crunchy romaine.

Another beauty: the kimchi salad, which alternates layers of feisty pickled cabbage and raw hamachi and tuna into an eye-catching deliberation in texture and most especially color -- coral and pink flecked with tiny bursts of bright red chile accents. Each light, refreshing bite manages to be both cool and hot, and utterly delicious.

More salad loveliness comes in the form of the unbeatable and artfully arranged combination of sweet crab and rich avocado. Umezu also has a way with mild-tasting yellowtail, cutting it into bite-sized pieces, giving it a quick sear and laying it out on a bed of pungent, thin-sliced raw onions. Shrimp croquettes have an appealing snap, and fried panko-crusted oysters melt in your mouth.

Non-seafood items also stand out. Umezu takes round cuts of pork belly, sears them on the grill and lays them on caramelized onions, their sweetness an ideal foil to that fatty pork. I have a thing for the crispy dumplings, filled with well-seasoned ground chicken. Fried boneless chicken breast is bested only by the similarly juicy and crispy-skinned grilled chicken thighs.

The cooking is not without its issues. Sashimi sometimes tasted less than perfectly pristine, and mussels had tiptoed past their freshness date. Broths were occasionally, punishingly salty. Sautéed ramen noodles were greasy and overcooked on one visit, splendid the next. Grisly spareribs routinely demanded a jaw-busting workout. The fryer's heat seems to sap the supple essence out of tempura-style avocado. And what a bummer to encounter a fishy cast to that marvelous fried chicken, as if it had been fried in the same oil with those tasty shrimp croquettes.

But complaints take a back seat when Umezu does his best to keep prices under $10. While the kitchen doesn't appear to value nuance above all else, that's not a trait often demanded of bar menus, particularly value-minded ones.

Other small details also add up. Tables are stocked with glasses filled with what looks like incense but is actually fried buckwheat noodles tossed with sea salt, a crunchy and addictive snack. The thoughtful beer list goes out of its way to feature Japanese selections seldom tapped in the Midwest. Service is relentlessly cheerful.

Goh's and Ng's shoebox-scaled Zen Box has been making skyway diners happy since 2004. This new venture is a much more ambitious undertaking, and kudos to these hospitable food entrepreneurs for tackling something different.