CHANTO

[eatingwitheddie]

Has anyone tried Chanto (7th Avenue South) or know what they're about?

The owner/chef in Tokyo is well known in Japan (where he has 50 restaurants) and purportedly has aspirations of being the new Nobu or Megu of NYC.

[Sethro]

I'm doing the desserts over there (well, over here).

The restuarant is reasonably priced, high-end dining.

There's 2 lounge levels and two dining levels, so you can kind of pick and choose the atmosphere you prefer.

The food is not very fusion-y at all, more like Japanese influenced American fare.

The service is extremely well-trained and attentive and that's kind of what we hope will help differentiate us.

Definetely not trying to out-Nobu Nobu or anything silly like that. Its in a completely different vein.

If you guys want to come in and check it out we'll give you a 10% discount, just say your Egulleters (Eguleteers?). Trying to drum up business anyhow, our PR is weak as hell.

There's a $45 3-course (plus amuses, intermezzos and pre-desserts) prix fix that I can honestly say is an amazing deal. I'd recomend trying that.

[rooftop1000]

Website?

[Sethro]

Website?

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VERY outdated and uninformative.

Here it is anyhow...

[raji]

I'm doing the desserts over there (well, over here).

The restuarant is reasonably priced, high-end dining.

There's 2 lounge levels and two dining levels, so you can kind of pick and choose the atmosphere you prefer.

The food is not very fusion-y at all, more like Japanese influenced American fare.

The service is extremely well-trained and attentive and that's kind of what we hope will help differentiate us.

Definetely not trying to out-Nobu Nobu or anything silly like that. Its in a completely different vein.

If you guys want to come in and check it out we'll give you a 10% discount, just say your Egulleters (Eguleteers?). Trying to drum up business anyhow, our PR is weak as hell.

There's a $45 3-course (plus amuses, intermezzos and pre-desserts) prix fix that I can honestly say is an amazing deal. I'd recomend trying that.

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i'm in Japan right now, can you ask your teammates which their favorite is? And do they have one in Ikebukuro?

Chanto has to be the quietest Japanese restaurant opening anywhere downtown that I can think of.... I'd rather have that than the freakin' circus surrounding Iron Chef Morimoto

Their menu reminds me of the high-priced Japanese influenced continental cuisine available in such Tokyo neighborhoods as Aoyama, Nishi-Azabu, Minami-Aoyama, Roppongi, etc.

[Pan]

[...]There's a $45 3-course (plus amuses, intermezzos and pre-desserts) prix fix that I can honestly say is an amazing deal. I'd recomend trying that.

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Congratulations on your position!

I'm very interested in that prix fixe. What are (some of) the choices?

[Sethro]

I'll just scan the menu and post it sometime tommorow...

[Pan]

Thanks, Sethro.

[skiter53]

Thanks Sethro, can't wait to check out the menu.

lol, is that 10% discount for egullet for real?

[Sethro]

Of course the Eg discount is real!

----- APPETIZER-----

Tuna Carpaccio

topped with fried garlic chip & scallions

Tebagyo

teriyaki chicken wing stuffed with pork dumpling

Tuna Summer Roll

watercress, cilantro and yam potato in rice paper, with spicy soy sauce

Fluke Carpaccio

served with pine nuts & red beet salad

Scallop Carpaccio

salted seaweed & fresh tomato salad with original garlic sauce

Hamachi Tataki

served with shiitake & shimeji mushrooms marinated in garlic ponzu

King Crab Croquette

topped with fresh sea urchin

King of Kimchee

CHANTO’s Signature Dish

Today’s Oysters

served with a trio of sauces (add $5)

Fatty Tuna Carpaccio

served with jalapeno with ginger sauce (add $8)

Today’s Chef Sashimi Platter (add $10)

----- ENTRÉE-----

Sautéed Miso Marinated Black Cod

served on a bed of white & green asparagus with sake kasu sauce

Yuan Style Sautéed Salmon

Japanese tartar sauce with balsamic glazed burdock roots

Oven Roasted Organic Chicken

whole chicken leg marinated in miso yuan sauce with sautéed vegetables

Hirekatsu

Japanese pork loin cutlet served with white rice & sesame tonkatsu sauce

Hanger Steak

served with vegetables & moromi(whole grain) miso sauce

Giant Shrimp Tempura

served on a bed of balsamic rice salad

Teriyaki Foie Gras

served with lotus root pancake (add $8)

Grilled Rack of Lamb

served with kinzanji miso (white whole grain) & mashed potato (add $12)

Special Select Charcoal Grilled Sirloin

served with jyaga butter and wasabi soy sauce ( add $12)

----- DESSERT -----

Sticky Coconut Cake

with watermelon dumplings and condensed milk gelato

Yuzu Scented Cheese Cake

with matcha mascarpone parfait and raspberry salad

White Sesame Tiramisu

with caramelized banana and milk chocolate sorbet

Tofu Panna Cotta

served three ways, with peach compote, yokan and gingered blueberry

CHANTO Chocolate Fondant

with plum wine geleé and vanilla ice cream

[eatingwitheddie]

Of course the Eg discount is real!

----- APPETIZER-----

Tuna Carpaccio

topped with fried garlic chip & scallions

Tebagyo

teriyaki chicken wing stuffed with pork dumpling

Tuna Summer Roll

watercress, cilantro and yam potato in rice paper, with spicy soy sauce

Fluke Carpaccio

served with pine nuts & red beet salad

Scallop Carpaccio

salted seaweed & fresh tomato salad with original garlic sauce

Hamachi Tataki

served with shiitake & shimeji mushrooms marinated in garlic ponzu

King Crab Croquette

topped with fresh sea urchin

King of Kimchee

CHANTO’s Signature Dish

Today’s Oysters

served with a trio of sauces (add $5)

Fatty Tuna Carpaccio

served with jalapeno with ginger sauce (add $8)

Today’s Chef Sashimi Platter (add $10)

----- ENTRÉE-----

Sautéed Miso Marinated Black Cod

served on a bed of white & green asparagus with sake kasu sauce

Yuan Style Sautéed Salmon

Japanese tartar sauce with balsamic glazed burdock roots

Oven Roasted Organic Chicken

whole chicken leg marinated in miso yuan sauce with sautéed vegetables

Hirekatsu

Japanese pork loin cutlet served with white rice & sesame tonkatsu sauce

Hanger Steak

served with vegetables & moromi(whole grain) miso sauce

Giant Shrimp Tempura

served on a bed of balsamic rice salad

Teriyaki Foie Gras

served with lotus root pancake (add $8)

Grilled Rack of Lamb

served with kinzanji miso (white whole grain) & mashed potato (add $12)

Special Select Charcoal Grilled Sirloin

served with jyaga butter and wasabi soy sauce ( add $12)

----- DESSERT -----

Sticky Coconut Cake

with watermelon dumplings and condensed milk gelato 

Yuzu Scented Cheese Cake

with matcha mascarpone parfait and raspberry salad

White Sesame Tiramisu

with caramelized banana and milk chocolate sorbet

Tofu Panna Cotta

served three ways, with peach compote, yokan and gingered blueberry

CHANTO Chocolate Fondant

with plum wine geleé and vanilla ice cream

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what are the best dishes?

[Sethro]

what are the best dishes?

←

I haven't tried everything, but I like:

Fatty Tuna Carpaccio

Tebagyo

Sautéed Miso Marinated Black Cod

Teriyaki Foie Gras

[skiter53]

Sethro,

Thanks.

I think I will come give it a try tonight.

Since you do dessert, what dessert items do you recommend?

Edited August 4, 2006 by skiter53 (log)

[Sethro]

There's a nice strawberry special right now.

Otherwise I guess it depends what you're in the mood for...

[skiter53]

A group of 6 of us went to try Chanto out on Friday night at 7pm. The place was quiet, with only the few tables around us filled . However, I did not check out the 3rd floor, where the main dining room was, so there may have been more people there. The room is beautiful though.

The total came to about 350 for the 6 of us, including drinks, tips and tax.

I made it a point to try out some of the items Sethro recommended. The Tebagyo (

teriyaki chicken wing stuffed with pork dumpling) was very good. Crispy on the outside and juicy inside. Upon biting into the stuffed portion, the juices from the pork dumpling flowed out (much like the liquid in xiao long bao's, chinese steamed pork dumplings). Very tasty.

The King of Kimchee was also very good. It is basically sashimi mixed with some seasonings/herbs (I forgot what it involved, had pine nuts), then wrapped with a thin layer of kimchee. Originally came in a ball shape, then cut up into four. The seasoning tied the different components together, while the texture of the fish and the kimchee provided an interesting contrast. I'd recommend this.

I also had the Teriyaki Foie Gras. It was served over a lotus root pancake that was very interesting. It was crispy on the outside (fried), and mushy on the inside. But upon chewing it, you could taste and feel the crunchiness of the lotus root. Unfortunately, I thought the Foie Gras was a little undersized and plain.

I got to sample some of the Sautéed Miso Marinated Black Cod and I'd say that while the fish was perfect, the sauce (I don't know what it was - white, creamy, almost citrusy) was a little too acidic and didn't go well with the fish. My two friends also complained of this and did not seem to enjoy the Black Cod that much.

On to the desserts, we tried the Sticky Coconut Cake, White Sesame Tiramisu, and the CHANTO Chocolate Fondant. Sethro was kind enough to come out and greet us and present another dessert for us, something I never got the name of.

The desserts were overall very good. Better than the food, a few of us mentioned. The tiramisu was light and tasty. The Coconut cake went very well with the watermelon "dumplings" and the condensed milk gelato. The chocolate fondant was very rich, but well balanced by the plum wine jelly and vanilla ice cream.

The most interesting was what Sethro brought out. It was a plate of sesame sweets (?) and strawberries, along with a cup of cold soy soda, with a scoop of caramel gelato(?). I really couldn't tell what it was, but the drink was very refreshing. It was slightly fizzy, not too sweet, with hints of the caramel gelato, and tasted like soy milk.

The 3 course prix fixe came with some other complimentary items, such as a baby vegatable appetizier (raw baby veggies, with a anchovy/olive/miso? dip), ginger/plum sushi (to clean the palate apparently, the ginger was a little too overwhelming for me), and an orange/sorbet type dessert (again I missed what this was, but it was good).

Overall, we left happy and will probably return again to try some of the other items on the menu. Thanks Sethro for coming out and saying Hi.

[Sethro]

Thanks again for comming in, I'm glad you guys had a good time.

Let me appologise, becuase you guys were supposed to be seated in the main dining room, but when you upped from a 5-top to 6-top on opentable, we didn't get the update in time (apparently) and there were no 6's available at that point on the third floor.

I know your server also has a hard time speaking loudly. She does know all the dishes very well, shes just too quiet!

[Pan]

Is that $45 menu offered on weekends as well as weekdays?

[Sethro]

Yes, 7 days a week.

[raji]

Yes, 7 days a week.

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I'll definitely be by for the $45 course, has anybody seen 13 Tzameti? Cuz that will give me a reason to go to Film Forum and therefore Chanto....

[tjdnewyork]

We ate at Chanto tonight and I really liked the place. This is a kind of restaurant that is everywhere in Tokyo (I think of Kitchen Shunju as the epitome of this kind of place) but hard to find in New York--what I think of as the nouveau izakaya. It's Japanese but with definite western influences and inflections. EN Japanese Brasserie is trying to do the same thing but is nowhere near as good; the same can be said for this place butai on East 18th. We had an excellent crab croquette covered in uni, a fatty tuna roll, a fried pork dish, and grilled asparagus. Quality was high. I really liked the raw vegetables they have as a free starter--something you find everywhere in Tokyo at these kinds of places, but something I haven't seen here at all. The only thing that I found a little strange was the division into appetizers and entrees. The places of this sort that I went to in Tokyo didn't divide things in this way and had a menu that was designed more as an izakaya or tapas style meanu. This place is the same food, but I guess they are trying to Americanize the concept a bit. I definitely recommend checking this place out.

[Pan]

mascarpone, his wife and I had a great dinner at Chanto tonight. We started with an amuse bouche of crudites (sections of beet, baby carrots, a baby zucchini, and a section of celery) with a dip that I believe had olive oil, miso, and pureed cherries in it. The cherries were not noticeable as a separate flavor, but the blend was good and went particularly well with the celery, I thought. Next were the appetizers. Two of us got the King of Kimuchi and one got the Fluke Carpaccio. The King of Kimuchi was brilliant! There's no possible way I could do justice to it, but it was such an imaginative mixture of flavors and textures, with everything really fresh and high-quality! Inside the kimchi leaves were various things, including bitter daikon sprouts, fragrant cilantro, cashew nuts, absolutely unfishy tuna, scallops, and grilled shrimp, and there were pignoli on top of the leaves. The Fluke Carpaccio was much subtler but also excellent. We were then given ume siso rolls as a kind of palate cleanser. They were accompanied by very delicate very young ginger and also contained pickled ginger. Following that, I got the Sauteed Black Cod and my dining partners got the Hanger Steak and the Giant Shrimp Tempura. I really liked the cod, which was a perfect flaky fish cooked in Sake Kasu (lees) sauce and accompanied by lovely green and white asparagus spears - subtle and harmonious. The Hanger Steak was just perfectly cooked, with exactly the right amount of char, and the accompanying vegetables were delicious. The Shrimp Tempra was less flamboyant than the cod and the steak, but was made with very good panko and tasted good. We then were given a milk sorbet topped with a lot of orange foam and a small piece of subtle basil. It was very refreshing, a perfect palate cleanser. For dessert, I ordered the Sticky Coconut Cake, and the others ordered the White Sesame Tiramisu and the Chocolate Fondant. The Sticky Coconut Cake itself was good and reminded me somewhat of Malaysian kueh bakar (wood-roasted cakes) -- a complimentary remark for me. It came with a very soothing, excellent dessert soup made with coconut milk and little balls of watermelon. But the portion of the dessert that was most amazing was the condensed milk ice cream, which was not nearly as sweet as I would have expected and had somewhat of a cheesy taste. The tiramisu was subtle and harmonious. The chocolate fondant was a fairly typical molten chocolate cake made with good chocolate, but one of its accompaniments was a plum wine jelly which was lovely. We were also sent out another dessert, which we all thought was best of all: A great take on brittle, which included among other things popped rice, sesame seeds, and I believe poppy seeds, and which was only slightly sweet and a bit salty; wonderful stewed baby strawberries, which were somewhat tart and somewhat sweet; and a soy milk float, which was delicious and again only somewhat sweet. Goodness knows I have a sweet tooth, but I love desserts that dare to be only a little sweet. Sethro came out and spoke with us. He is not only a great pastry chef but also a really cool guy.

I chose to have sake pairings with my meal, and they were very well-chosen. The sake that accompanied the kimchi was subtle and a bit fruity; the one that accompanied the black cod was a bit stronger; and I loved the dessert sake.

We loved the space, which is an example of good modern architecture, has tall ceilings and plenty of space between tables, and lets patrons on the 2nd floor look out the big windows at the street below. The plates were also remarked upon as pleasing.

Our service was great. The servers are knowledgeable about the food and drink and helped select the sake pairings, and seemed genuinely interested in whether we were enjoying our food and drink.

Having tipped just over 20% on the entire bill including tax, I believe I still undertipped. I will have to remember to make it up to them next time. The entire staff was gracious and highly professional. Chanto is a relaxing restaurant, but make no mistake, these people are serious about their food and service, and are putting out a great product!

[Edited to add that we enjoyed the selection of bebop and post-bop that was playing on the sound system. I thought it was really appropriate for the neighborhood, and hearing it helped prompt us to go to Small's afterwards for some great live music in similar styles.]

Edited August 20, 2006 by Pan (log)

[mascarpone]

I have very little to add to Pan's wonderfully detailed post, other than the highlights of the meal were Seth's desserts, the King of Kimuchi app., and Pan's Cod main dish. My wife and I had a very nice Gewuertzeminer wine that went particularly well with the Kimchee app.

The waitstaff was extremely attentive and accomodating. In my youth I was taught by my parents that it was not proper to share food in fine dining establishments. In later life, I always advocate and practise exchanging portions of my meal with other dining partners so that they may experience my dish in addition to their own. At CHANTO, when I began the process of transferring a portion of my shrimp to my wife's plate, I was immediately given an elegant dish an serving spoon. Pan and my wife were also given the same, which facilitated our food sharing project immensely.

Although a very different restaurant, CHANTO is an example of a very effective fusion retaurant, equal in calibre to UNION PACIFIC of yore.

[Sethro]

the condensed milk ice cream, which was not nearly as sweet as I would have expected and had somewhat of a cheesy taste.

Good tongue, that's creme fraiche in there for a little acid and "funk".

Thanks again for comming in (and for the very nice comments), it was a pleasure to meet you guys.

[Pan]

the condensed milk ice cream, which was not nearly as sweet as I would have expected and had somewhat of a cheesy taste.

Good tongue, that's creme fraiche in there for a little acid and "funk".

Thanks again for comming in (and for the very nice comments), it was a pleasure to meet you guys.

←

The pleasure was all ours, believe me!

I hope to have the occasion to come back fairly soon.

[Sethro]

Just a heads up: the Eg 10% deal ends with August.