Yasu replaces a long series of large, unsuccessful Asian restaurants in this space in Coolidge Corner. The new features are an extensive menu of Japanese and Korean specialties, with a whole room dedicated to Korean at-table barbecue. I tried it both ways, and enjoyed both visits, but the barbecue provides the most fun.

There are appetizers, mostly Japanese, plus a long list of custom sushi. I tried a Red Sox maki ($10.95), which is somewhat different than the one at Umi (nearer to Fenway) but also served in a long roll topped with tobiko (red flying-fish roe) — like a red sock, I guess. Inside was a rice roll around a fried eel, and a topping of lobster or shrimp under the tobiko.

One of the few denominated Korean appetizers, scallion pancake ($9.95), is a great one, greasy and eggy but full of scallions with a nice soy-based dip that cuts the grease. Shumai ($5.75) are bland but satisfying barrels of seafood paste, shaped like bay scallops but with more flavor than all but the freshest local bay scallops. Oshitashi ($4.50), the dish of spinach cooked with sesame seeds, is distinguished mostly by the handsome jade-green service plates.

For many diners, the variety of side dishes (ban chan) served with large Korean dinners will be appetizers enough. When we sat at the barbecue table and ordered two large barbecue dishes, we got about 11 ban chan, including a wonderful cucumber kimchi as fresh and crisp as half-sour pickles, the usual Napa-cabbage kim chee, a nice dish of pickled seaweed salad, an intriguing dish of hot radish leaves, another of mild dried fish crumbles, some thin daikon disks marinated for wrapping bits of seafood, a dish of shredded and marinated bellflowers, bean-curd skins, another of sake-marinated daikon I liked quite a lot, one of pickled bean sprouts, and an almost-conventional salad of lightly cooked green beans, baby corn cobs, and carrots. (With smaller dinners on another visit, we had the two kinds of kimchi, the green-bean salad, the marinated daikon, and the pickled seaweed.)

For barbecue tables, at least two people have to order from the grill menu, which includes several kinds of bulgogi and two of kalbi, the wonderful sliced short ribs. Korean cuisine works for many non–Asian Americans because it takes beef seriously. Diamond kalbi ($19.95) came to the table as a goodly heap of slices, probably marinated in sake and a little soy, with onions. Our server lit the grill and put some on. To eat them traditionally, we could wrap them in lettuce leaves with shredded scallion and onion, a mild bean-garlic-spice paste, and bits of hot sliced garlic. We had tongs to cook our own, and chopsticks to grab them off the grill and devour each crusty bite.

The more elaborate "seafood and mushroom bbq" ($29.95) had only supermarket mushroom slices, but lots of thick squid that grilled up tender and toothsome, a whole lobster tail cut into bite-size chunks, numerous shrimp, sea scallops cut on the equator (the faster to grill), and a fillet of salmon — the only thing that overcooked on me, and it was still excellent. The seafood assortment came with its own sharper dipping sauce, and a piece of already-cooked mackerel.

Both dishes came with a small metal pot of sticky rice and a weird garnish of maraschino cherry in a nest of shredded daikon. Don’t try that at home, nor eat it in the restaurant.

Eating more conventionally, I tried drunken salmon ($12.95), two fillets, slightly overdone, and more salty than winy or "drunken," but tasty. One of my standard Korean restaurant dishes, Oh Jing Uh Bok Um, "pan-fried spicy squid" ($15.95), was very good with the thicker squid pieces, artfully scored to hold more of the hot chili paste. I usually get this dish for the vegetables, here snow peas, green beans, carrots, and onions. Udon noodles on the side were also good with the spicy sauce.

The most unusual drinks here are strong Korean rice spirits. I ordered a fine Japanese sake, Otokoyama ($9.95; $44.95/300ml bottle). Instead I was served Sho Chiku Bai premium ginjo — also a very fine sake at a very attractive price, although made in Berkeley, California. Ginjo sake is made from rice grains milled down to a fraction of their original size and cold-fermented so the flavor is especially clean and smooth, with perhaps notes of apple and pear. Of course, the real drink for this food is beer, and Kirin Lite ($3.95) is a clean pilsner that works well. So, surprisingly, did a glass of Bogle merlot ($6.95/glass; $25/bottle), which was spicy enough to keep up with even some of the Korean food.

Desserts run to the usual ginger, green tea, and red-bean ice creams ($3), and mochi ice cream ($3.50/two pieces), which is bon-bons of very sweet ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry) wrapped in sweet pounded rice.

Service at Yasu was excellent on both visits, with good explanations, technical assistance with the grill table, and few missed orders. The atmosphere, despite a disjunctive R&B soundtrack, is suitably mixed, with tables of Asian-Americans — I’ll have what they’re having — gathered around barbecue grills or hotplates for hotpot fondues, as well as non-Asians. The sushi bar wasn’t yet developed, but when it is, it could become another focus, given the crowds lined up at Coolidge Corner’s many sushi bars. Chef Yasu reportedly came from the popular Mr. Sushi.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.