We're way past sushi

IN their stead has come a new generation, many of them young students in their 20s straight from Japan, and they represent modern Japan. Like Tokyo, they are metropolitan and sophisticated, westernized and hungry. As rents in the area go through the roof, their numbers seem to increase, especially the young women -- no longer as funky-chic as in days past, with the bleached blond hair and spray-on tans or the platform boots and micro-minis. Nowadays, most of them are poured into skin-tight booty jeans and boots like everyone else in town.

They join sidewalks full of young people of other ethnicities -- lots of Chinese, lots of Koreans, a smattering of Latinos who've always lived in the area -- and funky hipsters from UCLA and the Westside looking for kicks, as well as serious foodies drifting down out of Pacific Palisades and Brentwood. In their wake come changes -- trendy, internationalist and mostly upscale.

At the corner of Sawtelle and LaGrange, a once-struggling cluster of shops has been reborn over the last two years as one of the Westside's hottest dining destinations. Diners in their 30s and 40s crowd the patio outside Orris, a French-Japanese \o7izakaya, \f7a pub-style restaurant offering small plates like tapas, waiting for a table. Mizu 212 features \o7shabu-shabu\f7, in which diners cook their food in boiling water, a kind of twist on Korean barbecue. Mizu 212's neighbor, the 5-month-old ramen hot spot Chabuya, is similarly stacked, with lots of overflow to Sushi Tenn and the little Ketchy II hamburger stand.

Down the street in the Olympic Collection strip mall, longtime French-Japanese restaurant Muse has been replaced by the busy French-Korean spot Zip Fusion, which has a trio of well-appointed karaoke rooms in the back. Also new is Tofu Ya, which specializes in a Korean \o7soon \f7tofu, a tofu soup served in an iron pot.

And then came Daichan, where the food is plucked from a revolving conveyor, dim-sum-style. Even more surprising to locals: The trendy Black Market clothing store, the first of its kind a few years back, now has company, including the chic shoe store Blu 82, which sells only super-trendy sneakers.

"In this area, along the back street, there's a lot of apartment buildings, and there's a new influx of Japanese immigrants now, the young kids, looking for a different lifestyle. I call it the New Issei Generation," says Russell Yamaguchi, 38. Yamaguchi Gift Shop, owned by Yamaguchi's father and his uncle, has been a staple of Japanese American culture on Sawtelle since 1946, a place to pick up beautifully made lacquerware or traditional stationery. Now father and uncle are considering closing up.