TABLES FOR TWO.(Yakitori Totto)(Restaurant Review)

YAKITORI TOTTO -- 251 W. 55th St. (212-245-4555)--With bird flu inching toward us and more than a million Americans falling victim to salmonella each year, this might not seem like the smartest time to eat raw chicken. Still, unless this bustling little yakitori joint is playing a dangerous practical joke, chicken sashimi is a delicacy in Japan. Like many extreme foods, it turns out to be less dramatically weird than one secretly hoped. Something like yellowtail sashimi in appearance and texture, but with a flavor less distinctive than that of most raw fish, the raw chicken is best served with an accompaniment--a marvellously aggressive wasabi, chopped very coarse, or pickled plums that impart a smoky flavor. Non-Japanese diners are asked if they really want to eat it raw, but the staff's friendly professionalism reassures one that, as with trapeze artists or brain surgeons, whatever they are doing must be safe.

Even once the chicken is cooked (yakitori means chicken grilled on a skewer), things stay strange. Yakitori Totto cooks the whole chicken, and then some: the skin (a crispy ribbon twirled round the skewer), the gizzard (improbably fibrous, almost like celery), the tail (a deliquescent dollop of fat that makes you ...