Kushi are Japanese skewers, bamboo or metal. Threaded with a sardine, a prawn, peppers, pork belly or chicken hearts, they're grilled over makeshift charcoal braziers and served up to passersby in Tokyo. In Belltown, you get to sit. In fact, you'll be served on the new open-air deck along Second, a 40-seat expanse at sidewalk level, while executive chef Billy Beach grills your mushrooms or gizzards (over imported coals) inside.

This is Kushibar, from the folks who brought you Umi Sake House. It opened to the public last night with an ambitious menu of more than 80 items on skewers costing $2 to $5 apiece, with happy hour combo platters available. Ten-buck minimum.

Some 20 or so soups and noodles bowls as well: stir-fried yaki udom "street style" as well as the usual soupy suspects (chicken broth with pork, corn, egg, scallions), all in the $8 to $15 price range. House ramen, $11, in a bowl big enough to bathe a puppy, lacked punch; not a drop of soy or hot sauce to be seen. House beers on tap include Sapporo and Oly (now part of Pabst, alas).

Typical opening night madhouse, with kitchen staff overwhelmed by blizzard of orders. Will no doubt improve, but several parties gave up and left in despair, kushi-less.

Kushibar, 2319 Second Avenue, 206-448-2488