How many Japanese restaurants can Hong Kong support? They seem innumerable, and among them is Fukudakin in Causeway Bay, which I had not heard of before. But apparently thousands of others know it well. The restaurant's three floors of karaoke rooms, sushi and teppanyaki bars, tatami rooms, private rooms and dining rooms were almost packed to the gills when the two of us arrived. A reservation was obviously a necessity. Why is this so? As we were seated in a two-person private room (nothing extra for the seclusion) the menu at first glance seemed neither exciting nor unique: the usual set lunches, the familiar teppanyaki sets (around $140), and the large selection of raw fish or fish on rice. Our waitress, with a badge declaring she was Mena, approached. Mena was exuberant, lively, spoke excellent English, and tried to push the Kobe steak, abalone and the raw fish. But we wanted something different, something which could not be obtained in the other Japanese restaurants around town. At first we had little luck, for Fukudakin hides its charms cunningly. But by prodding, prying, even going into the 'Japanese language only' (in other words, the stuff non-Japanese do not get to eat), we managed to put together a unique meal. The abalone might be considered unique here, but at $400 a plate, no shellfish was going to break our pocketbook. Instead, we discovered those tiny dishes which, at a 'mere' $70 or $100 a throw, were excellent. One of them was meant to accompany our sake, which came in the most beautiful Arctic-blue flagon and cups. The 'dried file fish' - a name which can be given to any number of clerks we know - come from a family of granular fish something like the Atlantic triggerfish. They are also highly poisonous, especially in Hawaii. Ours were pencil-thin, lightly fried and tender, the perfect accompaniment to the sake. Next came a nato roll, a dish only the Japanese could conceive. Nato is basically an ugly brown stew of fermented beans, sticky and altogether repulsive. But nato in a roll was new, and as my guest was not ready for the real thing, we had a modified nato: the stew was pressed inside a rice cake, so the flavour was but a whisper of the original. With soya and wasabi mustard, he never knew the real thing. The most delicious appetiser of all was the 'baby squids with mashed soya beans'. The squids were raw, and you could see their little tails dangling from the tiny bodies. How do they taste? I immediately thought of excellent cold, fresh oysters. My guest thought it tasted like raw liver. In any case, they slid down the throat with ease, the soya beans an unimportant afterthought. We thought the young seaweed with cucumber, served with a light vinegar, was a rather meaningless dish. Tastewise, it was like Kenny G: pleasant, unassuming, forgettable. About the most substantial of the first courses was the sushi: one ark shell, one tuna, both fresh and delicious. We needed more. That was when Mena arrived, and we started on the big courses. The first was one of my all-time favourites, the badly named egg custard. The Japanese name promises far more: chawanmushi has never been more aromatic and tastier than that made in Fukudakin. This is a thick, steamed egg custard - with some important additions. These include some cooked chicken, a large shrimp, some white fish, a few mushrooms, and, at the bottom, a ginko nut. When made well - and here it is without fault - this is thick, rich and nutritious. The next dish, called 'paper hotpot', looked wonderful. Pieces of charcoal are placed in a clay pot, with a silver strainer on top. A paper cone sits on this. A broth, with cabbage, white fish, shrimp and fake crab, is set boiling. There is more. Two big slices of raw beef are placed on an accompanying plate. Once the fish is consumed, one dunks the beef in the broth, and a minute later one has a beef broth. After this we had a 'Japanese only' dish of beef parcels: green vegetables inside, beef covered with roasted sesame seeds outside. They looked beautiful, tasted boring. After two big plates of cold noodles (one brown, one green, both tasting identical), we called it a night, without even having their famous sesame ice cream. The bill - minus the sake - came to $1,131. I find that exorbitant, having just come from Italy, where prices are fair. In Hong Kong, for Japanese food, nobody objects. And truth to tell, with a private room, efficient service, and enough sake, I was hardly in the mood to complain. FUKUDAKIN RESTAURANT 447 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay. Tel: 2836-3918. Open 12 noon-3pm, 6pm-midnight. Overall: ***; Value: ***