Chiyono

I dined here once a few years ago. I had a mediocre experience. The ambiance was very cozy but service was very slow. The food took about half an hour to come out. My friends and I were the only patrons during the whole time we were there.
I had the raw octopus and sashimi. It was fresh. Its sad that this place is close. The people working there seem very nice.

After reading all good reviews, unfortunately the store is closed for good when I went to try it.

Chiyono is the bomb. Homey style Japanese food, great location, nice people.

(3.5 stars)
This place is very small and cozy. The large table in the middle definitely lends itself to some kind of family-​style feeling, but there are also two smaller tables kind of randomly in the restaurant. The menu is very authentically Japanese; no sushi here!
The food was overall not bad. It was definitely very authentic-​tasting, and it was nice to have a non-​sushi Japanese meal. The entrée I got was the miso-​crusted cod, which was done fairly well. The main thing that struck me, however, was that the portions were all on the small side. That would be ok if either a) the prices were a bit lower, or b) the food tasted a bit fancier. All the food was tasty, but it was kind of in-​between casual and fancy (hence, ‘home-​cooked’), and at the end of the night the food had made little impact on my stomach despite costing me a total of around $ 30. The desserts were all nice (and light, not at all like heavy American desserts), but again I’m not sure if I would buy them again at those prices.
The service was very attentive and the food came out within a reasonable time. The only thing though is that a lot of our questions about the menu weren’t really answered because the waiters didn’t quite understand what we were trying to ask. It was also a bit hard sometimes to understand what they were saying. But, all of us seemed to enjoy our dishes, so just choosing something from the menu without really understanding what it is is not a huge risk!
All in all, a nice experience. Not entirely sure if I would come back (I’d probably opt for either fancier+more expensive or more Americanized+cheaper), but it’d be a viable option for the future.

This place is the greatest! I’ve been coming here for years and it’s always a wonderful experience. This is the only place in NY where you can get meticulous Japanese home cooking. You can tell that the chef and staff are incredibly passionate about the food they are serving.
The pork belly is amazing and all of the vegetable dishes have perfect flavor — my favorite is the lily root.
If you’re lucky, you’ll go on a day where they are cooking with vegetables from Japan grown/​flown in by the chef’s mother. Truly home cooking all the way!

What a perfect little gem of a meal. .. I thought all the good Japanese places were on 8^th and 9^th streets in the East Village, but after visiting Chiyono I know I’ll be back.
The restaurant is a calm, comfy space without any hectic «scene» or lines of people waiting to get in. For a good restaurant in this neighborhood on a weekend night during prime dinner hour, this is a refreshing rarity. There were definitely people in the place, but it wasn’t so packed that we couldn’t be seated. We were a party of four, and hungry! The relaxed space with muted, woodsy nature colors, a wooden leaf-​shaped communal table and huge flower arrangements was a nice change. There are way too many places these days where the décor tries to make everyone feel like they are having dinner in a «clubbin» atmosphere while blasting loud house music or predictable, trendy indie rock. This place was like being hidden away in a little Japanese tea house or garden far away from the city.
This place caters to vegetarians and carnivores alike, which was perfect for our party. We ordered lots of little plates and things that had so much flavor, texture and variety, strong and soft flavors, yum! Right away, we sampled the pickles appetizer of carrots, cucumbers and other veggies. Crisp and salty and crunchy, yum! Afterwards, we went on to several other small plates, such as the avocado and white yam salad (sweet & cold), and the vegetable gyoza (tender and flavorful without being too salty). My non-​veggie dining partners liked the raw squid and the pork belly appetizers. The meat looked tender and they slid it right off the bone, and came in a delicious broth that smelled of soy sauce and other rich flavors.
I opted for their $ 15 vegetarian plate, which consisted of a number of exciting little things. I got crunchy lotus root that was topped with a smidgen of spicy sauce, a fried potato croquette, brown hijiki rice, a tart cabbage slaw, cold sweet potato salad, and some chopped spicy cold bamboo shoots. I also got more gyoza. It was a wonderful, delicious, satisfying plate that had cold and hot items, spicy and non-​spicy, crunchy and soft, sweet and salty. .. yum yum!!! It was a filling meal but I wasn’t «overly stuffed» at all. Such great balance and variety to it all.
What was also nice about the meal was the pacing. They brought everything out with perfect timing. No long waits between appetizers or dinner items, and they timed my vegetarian platter to coincide perfectly with what the meat eaters ordered and shared together. They didn’t have much to say about the grilled fish, soba noodle salad or the salmon rice, but one thing my boyfriend and his friends couldn’t get over was the fried chicken!
We all loved this place and it was a relaxing, enjoyable meal. I love the Japanese «home cooking» style places that the EV has and hope they never close.

I like.
I got the grilled salmon. Light and sweet, not the best though.
The pork belly was good as well.
I know, I’m being crazy descriptive.

A little Gem. It feels like Tokyo, the food is well prepared to order with care and love, that is clear.
The dishes are mostly small but excellent value, you just get to order more!
home made pickles — very nice
Japanese squash — excellent
Sweet shrimp sashimi — excellent
Squid sashimi — excellent
Uni sashimi — Excellent
Fried oysters — huge, very good
Tofu & cod in broth– tofu was excellent, cod almost none existent
Belly pork — This was the only flop, it was tough and stringy, not soft.
Brown organic rice — wonderful, hardly could tell it was brown
Desert sampler — excellent, sweet potato ice cream was a killer
We will be back!

For the sake of it not getting crowded I hope people don’t find out about this place. It’s a good sleeper place for me. It’s good understated Japanese home cooking. Very nice servers and the chef usually comes out to great you/​bring something out and gauge your party.
Music is barely audible but it’s a nice place to go for a quiet night out.
I’d be an awkward first date spot due to that but a great place to enjoy the silence and great food with great company in tow.
There’s a large communal table and about two or three tables for two. My favorite is the table for two at the front right at the window.
The food is very clean and doesn’t leave you overstuffed.

Very cute japanese restaurant with homestyle food. The food is delicious. On each bite, you can feel the homeliness and comfort of the food.
The owner/​chef lady comes out to greet all the customers, which is a very nice touch.
A little on the expensive side, but you pay for the effort and time that is required with each plate of food.
: The FOOD:
Slow simmered pork belly: this was d-​e-​l-​i-​c-​i-​o-​u-​s. So flavoursome and tender.
Grilled Mackeral: this reminded my friend of being back in japan. Simple and tasty! Mackeral was fresh. Highly recommended!
Kara-​age: Who doesn’t love fried chicken. This isn’t ur regular fried chicken though. This is delicious japanese-​style fried chicken.
Croquette: Nicely fried and nice flavour. Quite average but tasty average!
Overall, come here if you recognise the effort and time of japanese homestyle food. Don’t come here wanting quality, come because you want that homely feel when eating.

3.5 stars.
We decided to check this spot out because the concept was so unique. We wanted to get something that would be hard to find in DC, so Japanese homestyle cooking it was.
We started with several appetizers, including sea urchin sashimi, octopus sashimi, and roasted pumpkin. The pumpkin was kind of boring, but satisfying on a cold winter night. The octopus was very good, but the sea urchin was absolutely melt-​in-​your-​mouth delicious. If everything had been as good as the sea urchin, this would easily be a 5 star review.
For entrees, we had a pork belly stew and miso marinated cod. The pork belly, well, it’s pork belly-​of course it’s tasty. This one wasn’t anything special, but you’ll never find me complaining about a big hunk of pork belly. The cod was also pretty good, if not particularly noteworthy.
I probably would have rounded up to four stars, but while we were waiting for the check, the waitress managed to spill her entire tray of beer on me. She was apologetic, but I smelled like beer the rest of the night. I know that can’t be helped sometimes, so I’m not going to hold it against them too much, but I am going to round their 3.5 down to a 3.

overpriced due to the small serving sizes but man-​oh-​man SAUTEED BURDOCK ROOT.
ordered on a whim. proud of myself right there.
cute place and homey in that black-​and-​white kurosawa/​ozu way.

Still a lovely place to get very authentic & home-​style Japanese food in the East Village. According to bf who has studied abroad in Japan for a semester in college, this is the type of food that Japanese families would eat at home.
We ordered a la carte this time instead of the pre-​fix meal. Highlights of the meal include octopus sashimi, pumpkin (specials menu), gobo soup (burdock root & potato potage), and chef’s special avocado salad. Their pork belly wasn’t as fatty as we remembered, but flavored with a nice soy sauce base. Their desserts are great and definitely very Asian because it’s not sweet (compared to the average American dessert).
Expect to spend about $ 35 or so to be full (excluding alcohol). The 2 ladies there don’t speak great English, but are very friendly. This is definitely not the type of place to eat quickly and leave. Great place to go if you’re in the mood for authentic Japanese home-​style cooking!

Have eaten here twice. Both times very courteous staff, friendly service. Homey atmosphere. Delicious homestyle dishes (pork belly dishes are particularly good). Interesting alternative to the overcrowded, sake and noodles/​teppanyaki-​oriented Japanese restaurants in East Village.
Only reservation is that the prices can be surprisingly high and some basics are extra.

Our waitress never heard of sake bombs until my party and she definitely asked us to stop doing them once she saw what they were. LOL.
Anyway, Chiyono is definitely a traditional Japanese restaurant… servings were small but very flavorful and filling. However, my Salmon Yuan-​Yaki had tons of tiny bones in it, which made it super hard to eat. They have to work on that…

The staff here are so cute. all women with the cutest Japanese manners… reminds me of the time when I visited my college roomate at her house and her mom made us homemade Japanee meatballs :)…mmmmm…so warm!
I liked the communal table stretched in the middle of the restaurant… something very casual, you can even carry on a conversation with the people sitting next to you. ^_​^
order their obanzai appetizers that came with bitter melon tempura, eggplant and pumpkin. I liked the pumpkin the best.
Also had a sanma whole fish. very boney but had good flavor. Their deepfried ground pork was ok. I got their seeweed rice and my friend had the salmon rice.
The dishes were plated with care and delicately assembled. It was all good but I’m not sure I liked bitter melon.
We shared a cold nigori sake which came in the cutest little bottle :) Loved it!
I would come again to try other things on their menu.

This place seems as advertised, and exactly what I would imagine a home cooked meal in Japan is like. You’ll spend around $ 20 a person to get full, as the portions were a little small. Unfortunately it’s home cooked food at not some home cooked prices.
I really liked the décor of the place and the customer service here is fantastic. I definitely recommend it if you’re looking to try some different Japanese food, but you may be better off coming here and sharing a bunch of dishes with friends.

This is the very best in Japanese food. It is a home-​cooked restaurant, in the style of many that you find in Tokyo. In fact it feels like you’re in Tokyo at this place… The dinning room is clean and empty, decorated by a few art pieces, and somehow feels like you’re eating at a friends house.
The food is very very good, each plate immaculately cooked and presented. Very tasty. One thing I’ll say though is that the portions are rather small. This is kind of a Japanese style though, but for me it means I have to order an entre and three appetizers, and still I’m not really full. So it ends up being a little pricey, but it’s very good.
I would say it’s perfect for a date, but I wouldn’t go here everyday because of the price…

HOME SWEET HOME! is how you feel when you eat their hearty foods. Located on Curry Row, all tackiness is left aside. You won’t see sake ads or Xmas lights adorning the walls here. Instead, what you get is pure unadulterated home cooking, and according to many (including myself), just like how a Japanese mom would make it. The preservation of the integrity of ingredients is what makes kaiseke cuisine my not so secret crush. Chiyono is also the owner’s name and she is happy to converse with her customers throughout the night. The green tea IS good and meets my expectations. It’s up there w/​Ariyoshi’s (by NYU) and Cha-An’s. The price point is very affordable given its location. It’s ‘under the radar’ status is a huge plus for those who want to avoid a wait. I will have to come back to try the sushi/​sashimi next time.
Ordered:
–Hijiki ($ 4.25) [simmered black seaweed and vegetable] — packed with flavor, big portion, fantastic
–Tofu Casserole w/​Hijiki (~$ 12) — clear soup broth, 4pcs of silken tofu, diping broth, watercress, inoki mushrooms, great winter food
–Special Avocado Salad ($ 8.50) — avocado and lettuce, must be either mirin or crack in the avocado, awesome!
–Saba-​Shioyaki ($ 9.25) [grilled mackerel] — 2pcs, smelled super fishy but was okay on the palette, served w/​potato salad and pureed daikon w/​soy
–Saikyo-​Yaki ($ 12.25) [grilled cod marinated in miso] — 2pcs, delicate, melty, served w/​potato salad, MUST GET, CRACK!
Total came out to $ 30/​pp after everything

Our visit to Chiyono reminded me of the meals I ate during my teenage years when I lived in Japan with host families. Chiyono is home cooking, simply made, executed well.
I didn’t find it prohibitively expensive. If you choose judiciously, you’ll walk out pleasantly full for just over $ 25 per person — excluding alcohol. Portion sizes are small — if you are used to US restaurant portion sizes. If you share and manage your expectations, you’ll enjoy your meal with few regrets. If your experience of Japanese food is limited to sushi joints and that’s what you’re expecting, you will be disappointed.
We came here because I was hoping to have some authentic home-​style cooking while I was in New York. Chicago really doesn’t have anything like Chiyono, so we decided to give it a try.
We ordered the house-​made shiu-​mai with shrimp (filled with shrimp and tofu) that were coated in egg and fried. They were quite tasty. The kara-​age (fried boneless chicken) we had was as good as any I’ve had in Japan. The tofu and cod was a little short on cod but was very tasty, too. The hijiki was an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ (shiitake, konyakku, hijiki, carrots, tofu, etc) version which I enjoyed. The kimpira (simmered burdock root) tasted just like my host mom’s. We had a bowl of special rice that was made with a little bit of furikake, salmon, and edamame.
This isn’t blow-​you-​away food. It is, quite simply, tasty home-​style cooking. Do yourself a favor — if you are interested in this type of cooking, buy yourself Elizabeth Andoh’s Washoku (
) and teach yourself to make it at home.