Restaurant or club? Real food or bar pupu? Those questions may be stopping diners from eating at O-saké, the lounge in the space that was once the monkey bar known as Blue Tropix. Opened in January, O-saké has been serving an evolving array of sushi and cooked dishes for the better part of the year, and it is safe to say it is as much restaurant as it is pool hall (there are six billiards tables) and bar (a very long one).

In fact, partner and co-executive chef Grant Kawasaki has put together an impressive menu of creative plates and sushi. Leave your sushi rules and etiquette at the door, 'cause at O-saké, anything goes. Think Sansei Seafood Restaurant & Sushi Bar 2.0.

Makes sense — Kawasaki trained under Sansei sushi chef Yoshi Nakamura. And with all his food-related enterprises (such as handling the sushi for Marukai under the umbrella company Global Foods), at 30, Kawasaki is on his way to becoming the next-generation D.K. Kodama, owner of Sansei, Vino, Hiroshi Eurasion Tapas and d.k Steak House.

O-saké's sushi bar is sequestered in its own little enclave — you cross a small wood bridge over a burbling koi pond (although the soothing water sounds are trumped by the lounge soundtrack) to perch at one of six stools. If you are short (as am I), you will spend an evening feeling like a 12-year-old. The stools' crossbars are low, so short legs dangle all evening, and the sushi counter is elevated, so that the chefs tower over you like high priests of 'ahi. (You can also sit in the lounge on upholstered cubes corralling low cocktail tables.)

Small humiliations aside, the biggest problem diners face at O-saké is deciding on what to order. On the plasticized menu pages are appetizers, specials, maki, "demi entrees," and recently introduced teishoku set dinners. Before you take a single bite, you're thinking "Must. Come. Back." (I already know what I'm trying next time: Hudson Valley foie gras with Hamakua mushroom ragout.)

What suits your mood? For pau hana snacks, order a few small, plates to share. Ready for dinner? Try a salad and a demi entree or a teishoku dinner (for $19 you get a tuna roll, dynamite chicken, seafood spring roll, tofu hiyayakko, edamame and sunomono). In for a long haul of shochu or sake sipping? Take your time with a parade of sashimi and sushi.

Kawasaki says he focuses on what people like — and they love his dynamite chicken. "I'll say I invented dynamite chicken. If anybody questions me I'll challenge them to what's in dynamite chicken." (It's fried chicken topped with Sriracha-mayo.) Yes, the menu has its share of fried, sweet, crowd pleasers (including pork dynamite — dry, tough tonkatsu topped with, yup, Sriracha-mayo and bottled Thai chili sauce), but Kawasaki has enough breadth to go beyond mass appeal. Some creations are stellar; others get an A for effort.

Mix up the dishes: Go au naturel, then bludgeon the taste buds with an ingredient pileup. Kawasaki understands this balance. For example, big, sweet Canadian scallops are served raw with only some yuzu-infused tobiko on top; use the accompanying shiso leaves and lemon slices at will. It's a sublime nude-food experience. Then shock the bestilled palate with the filet mignon sashimi, a landing strip of layered slices of ultra-tender raw beef with a lane of minced garlic running down the middle. The whole ensemble stews in Kawasaki's super tangy sweet soy vinaigrette (he has plans to bottle it).

The "new wave sashimi and sushi" section yields a slew of experiments. The amaebi shooter looks cool — on either end of a long, white serving plate is a cocktail glass, a glistening shrimp hanging off the lip of each, and a spicy mixture of ponzu, citrus oroshi and shiso pooled at the bottom. It's a grand try, but the whole point of amaebi is to enjoy its almost milky, subtly sweet flavor, which is extinguished if you knock back the strong sauce.

Success comes in the form of the hamachi "77" — sushi chef Nolan Brown rolls slices of the fish into seven little cylinders that he fills with tobiko and tops with a jalapeno slice and accents with ponzu. Flavor finds equipoise in contrasting textures.

Order a sake sampler from the well-edited drink menu. It's fun to find which selection goes best with what's on your plate at the moment.

Permanently on the menu is o-toro from Australian waters. Get it as sashimi for $32, or for a more manageable $16 you can have two pieces of nigiri. If a sushi house isn't tops in keeping its fish, it is possible to go wrong with o-toro. The gang at O-saké (Kawasaki, Brown, co-executive chef Norlan Horita, Troy Kamehiro, Sunny Kang and Mark Pomaski), although not classically trained, knows how to do it. Beautiful blocks of impeccable fish (cut large), top nicely firm, well-seasoned rice. The o-toro is almost like Jell-O the way it dissolves on the tongue.

Chewing on that to the strains of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" on the sound system was a transporting minute of heaven.

Reach Lesa Griffith at lgriffith@honoluluadvertiser.com.