TOKYO Every few minutes, there is a rumbling from above the vaulted ceiling as a bullet train passes overhead on its way to Kyoto and beyond; more frequently come rattles from the Yamanote-sen, the circular rail line around inner Tokyo.

Inside the brick-lined restaurant, harried waiters ferry tankards of draft beer, glasses of clear but potent shochu, the Japanese equivalent of vodka, and dishes of raw and grilled fish to groups of flushed-looking office workers. The chatter level rises. The "office ladies" no longer cover their mouths with their hands in modesty when they laugh.

The Shin Hi-no-Moto -- a poetic way of writing "New Japan" or "New Rising Sun" -- is one of Japan's myriad casual dining and drinking places known as izakaya. It is in the heart of the capital, at Yurakucho, under the arches of the great railroad viaduct streaming southward from Tokyo Station.

The improbable "izakaya master" presiding over this nightly binge of traditional food and drink is Andy Lunt, 57, from Leicester, England.

This is not what Lunt expected when, as a young rock vocalist in London, he met Japanese student Etsuko Nishizawa. After their marriage, she persuaded him to relocate to Japan and learn the family business from her father, who had no sons. The apprenticeship took 24 years, before Andy took over as shacho (boss) six years ago. Now the signboard displays both the Chinese characters for the restaurant's traditional name and the word "Andy's" in katakana, a Japanese phonetic script.

Before sampling the menu, I track Andy on his daily rounds, meeting early in the morning at Tsukiji, just beyond the luxurious Ginza shopping district, on the shore of Tokyo Bay. We walk to Tokyo's famous old fish market, which was threatened with a move to less convenient quarters to allow redevelopment of its prime location but has possibly gained a reprieve due to the discovery that the proposed new site remains contaminated by its previous occupant, a gas plant.

A member of Team Andy's (Photo by Jim Hand-Cukierman)

Before dawn, the 1,200 wholesale stall-holders have bid at auction for fish, crustaceans and shellfish flown in from around Japan -- and further afield by the four big seafood companies. Now they are selling the produce to restaurants and shops.

NARROW MARGINS When we two foreigners walk in, we are welcomed with friendly ohayo ("good morning") greetings from stall-holders. First stop is the outer vegetable market. Andy goes to a stall he always buys from and orders boxloads of produce. There is no point shopping around, as this is a fixed market. "The margin is gone," Andy said.

"Everything is pristine, cleaned, packaged. I am paying almost as much as a housewife in a supermarket, though it's fresher."

We walk further into the vast shed. Incandescent bulbs illuminate the calligraphy of the stall signs; there are polystyrene boxes and freezers filled with fish of all sizes, whelks, huge Hiroshima oysters, squid, octopus, a bloody hunk of whale meat, a pink slab of still frozen tuna. Heads of giant fish lie under the tables, to be ground up for cat food. The floor is covered with melting ice and water. Delivery men drive electric trolleys down the narrow aisles.

This is the critical part for Andy. The margin on vegetables is narrow, as is the margin on beer: Japan's four big breweries charge identical prices. "My entire business depends on my performance as a buyer with my fish," Andy said.

Keeping track of the tabs on a busy Saturday night at Andy's Shin Hi-no-Moto (Photo by Jim Hand-Cukierman)

But the best fish is very expensive, and the izakaya format must offer cheap eating. "So how can I possibly be buying the most expensive fish and serving them in an izakaya? But that's what I do, and that's why I'm fully booked every day of the year," Andy said.

The secret is the relationships with about 15 stalls that have been built up over 70 years by Andy, his wife's father and her grandfather. "I'm a stopper," he said. "I stop these guys from losing money and enable them to take the risk to make more money."

These stalls buy expensive fish at the auctions and make bigger margins when they sell. "The problem is that if they have any left over, they'll lose money," Andy noted. "I take that risk out for them by being here every morning and promising to buy whatever they've got left, no matter the quantity, as long as it's the right fish. Obviously, I am not paying the same price for it, but it's enough for them to make their money back. That's how I survive."

We progress from stall to stall. Andy orders sea bream and local mackerel for grilling, for which quality does not have to be perfect. For sashimi, the specialty of the Shin Hi-no-Moto, only the best will do. "I will not compromise when it comes to my sashimi," he said.

"LOUIS VUITTON" Andy prods a meter-long yellowtail, or kingfish, sitting in its own box, which has come from Aomori, in northern Japan. "That was OK, within my parameters, from a good location," he said. "Pretty good, but there are better fish around." If he buys, this one will cost about 40,000 yen ($355).

The entrance to Andy's Shin Hi-no-Moto in Tokyo's Yurakucho district (Photo by Jim Hand-Cukierman)

We look at some succulent red snapper, with eyes like gold coins. Another stall brings out a medium-sized aji, or horse mackerel, from Saganoseki. "Everybody knows Seki aji is the best," he said. "A lot of people won't have eaten it, as it costs three to four times as much as the common horse mackerel. It's the Louis Vuitton of horse mackerel."

The orders pile up, and we part company midmorning. When I call at Shin Hi-no-Moto at 4 p.m., empty boxes are stacked outside. From 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., when his staff arrive to start helping, Andy has been cleaning, gutting and filleting fish on his own. Now chefs Watanabe and Sekine are busy in the kitchen downstairs. Andy, his wife and sister-in-law are taking bookings.

Andy is writing out the Japanese menu of daily specials based on what he bought at Tsukiji this morning: abalone, white fish, ribbon fish, sweet prawns, squid, fried oysters, cod sperm ("everyone's favorite"), sea bream, small shellfish, chicken liver mousse -- but alas, not the Seki aji. "The guy didn't put it in," Andy said, "I tried to buy it. It means he didn't come down to the price I was willing to pay."

Later in the evening, a friend and I do what most customers do and ask for a selection of specials. The cod milt, or shirako, is white, folded like raw brains, and tastes faintly fishy. Its viscous texture must be the main appeal, along with a sense of adventurous eating. Several tankards of beer and glasses of shochu later, we are new friends with a table of Western stockbrokers working for Nomura, a Japanese brokerage.

The subway shuts shortly after midnight, so customers leave obediently. "The vast majority of Japanese are very well-behaved," Andy said. "If I had a business anywhere else serving this much alcohol, I would spend as much time in court as I would in my restaurant."

The staff also leave for the last train, leaving Andy and the Nishizawa sisters to do the final clear-up before finishing at 1 a.m., the end of a day that started at 6 a.m.

"That's the monster that I've created," he said. "I'm happy and comfortable with that, because I have to do it; it's a family business. It's great food, and I can stand there and watch 200 people leave with a smile on their face because they haven't been overcharged. Until one of my daughters brings some poor idiot to take my place, it's my job."