Until recently, the distinctive style of cooking mutton known as jingisukan -- the Japanese transliteration of the name of a well known Mongolian butcher -- was thought far too uncouth to be considered seriously. So how did this coarse, blue-collar dish, so long a staple of smoky grills in the godless wilds of Hokkaido, become a boom in trendy Tokyo enclaves?

It has nothing to do with the rise of Asashoryu and his sumo-wrestling compatriots; more to BSE-induced fears about beef; and lots to lamb being touted as the "healthy" meat. But the main reason is that a generation of young Japanese realized just how fun and funky -- and, better still, cheap -- this food could be. All it needed was the right look and some savvy marketing. Enter Kuro-hitsuji.

The formula was simple: Take an old, two-floor workshop in the back streets of Naka-Meguro; strip it down to reveal the wooden beams and roof, and fit picture windows across the front; equip with simple furnishings with a no-frills, modern look; then invest in a job lot of retro shichirin charcoal burners and cast-iron jingisukan grills. No cooks are needed, since the customers do the grilling at their tables, just a crew of young waiters to ferry the raw meat to the table and keep the drinks flowing.