An avocado salad appetizer at most Japanese restaurants is a simple but tasty combination of greens, tangles of daikon radish, and thin slices of ripe avocado. It used to be next to impossible to recreate those slim segments: Most home cooks remove avocado flesh by slicing the fruit in large chunks in the shell, then scooping them out with a spoon. Now, the kitchen goods store Sur La Table offers the Flexicado, a plastic slicing device that makes avocado scooping much easier and neater. To get the best-looking slices, cup an avocado half firmly in your palm, with the larger end of the avocado facing upward toward your fingers. Squeeze the slicer to make it fit the shell and slowly slide it downward, rotating your hand backward if need be to let the Flexicado move all the way down. To get the slices out, tip the shell over a plate and let them fall, or gently use a spoon to serve them one at a time. It’ll take a couple of tries to get truly perfect avocado slices with the Flexicado, but don’t worry: In no time, those fancy restaurant presentations will be at your fingertips.

The Flexicado is available at Sur La Table stores or www.surlatable.com, for $4.95.