Kitchen 5 is run by the attractive Yoko Kobayashi, with two assistants, and serves Mediterranean-inspired food. It is small, intimate, and dark. There's no menu; chef Kobayashi cooks what she likes and lays it all out on the long counter at the bar. Her system is simple: She'll talk you through the offerings of the day, you point at what you want, then sit back and relax.

Easy enough to say, but in actuality the challenge lies in choosing from among the dozens of dishes that beckon in a most visceral and immediate way. Many of the offerings are Spanish-influenced, and I'm tempted to call the whole thing an exercise in tapas grazing, but most of the servings are too large. 

One exception is the mixed antipasto platter, which was seven tapas-sized samplings of, well, mixed antipasti: A wonderful garlicky spinach with black olives and tomatoes; stuffed pepper; stuffed tomato; mussels and more. Among the main dishes we were particularly taken with a seven-vegetable fritatta, a melange of green, red and orange vegetables (one of which later revealed itself to be asparagus) molded into a towering wedge, served hot. Neither of us cared for the bacalao (Spanish-style stewed cod) but fought over the kajiki maguro (swordfish) with its basil crust, stuffed with a bright orange vegetable puree. We'd rather that the serving sizes had been smaller so that we could have sampled more, and the frequent "ding" of the microwave was a little disconcerting, but all in all I highly recommend Kitchen 5 for a small group of friends, or even alone.