Habuya

A skein of flat, linguine-like noodles and shards of ginger are so fine they all but dissolve in the broth. There are pork ribs, with brawny slabs of meat thick as a Little Leaguer's baseball bat. But the soki soba is all about the bones, marrow-filled ribs stewed until they can be eaten.

If there's one thing Mayumi Vargas wants everyone to know about her native Okinawa, it's the island chain's affinity for pork. And at Habuya, Vargas' new Okinawan restaurant in a hidden corner of a Tustin mini-mall, pork is a uniting force.

Okinawa is a Japanese prefecture apart. Although the subtropical islands have been absorbed nominally into Japan's national identity, they remain culturally individualistic. Habuya reflects that in its humble cooking, which is less like that of a refined seaside restaurant and more like that of a salt-licked coastal pub.

In traditional izakaya style, the restaurant is built on small, shared plates. You can approximate an assembly of banchan (the appetizers before a Korean meal) with the bitter melon kimchi. A subtle chile sting mitigates some of the gourd's potentially palate-punishing acridity. It's not a kimchi limp with fermentation; rather, it's one barely touched by time, the bitter melon still crisp and delicate and full of its own flavor.

Add to that an order of firm Okinawa-style tofu. One cube comes slicked with squid ink; others are topped with tiny, clear-eyed fish and dabbed with plum paste. Those ubiquitous Okinawan purple sweet potatoes arrive next, fried in fat wedges that could use a few more crystals of salt. Then it's a plate of sautéed shishito peppers buried under a pile of dried bonito flakes.

--Miles Clements, Special to The Times, 2/24/11