TOKYO — Lee Hefter barrels through the streets of the Ginza district on a cool spring night.

He has persuaded a pastry cook to lead the way to Shotai-en, an obscure restaurant specializing in Japanese beef.

Here it is, motions the cook, indicating an office building, before returning to his pastry shop.

An elevator to the ninth floor, a quick exchange with the host, and Hefter, the executive chef at Spago Beverly Hills, Calif., and formerly chef at Spago at the Four Seasons Maui in Wailea, is ordering beef sashimi, beef tartare, two kinds of salad, vegetables for grilling, shrimp on skewers, three kinds of Wagyu beef, Korean-style marinated beef and one — no, two — orders of tripe.

The waiter is still scribbling as he walks away.

"We should have tried the liver, too!" Hefter says.

For the past eight years, Hefter, 39, has been traveling to Japan for inspiration, bringing culinary ideas to his restaurants back home. He tries to make his annual trip during sakura zensen, the cherry blossom season.

Six days in Japan with Hefter and his wife, Sharon — and his insatiable appetite and curiosity — is also a crash course in sushi, tempura, yakiniku and kaiseki — culinary styles that define Japanese dining but rarely are seen in their pure form elsewhere.