Philadelphia Weekly

On a roll: Zento's square sushi is packed with eel, avocado and plum paste.

Zento
138 Chestnut St. 215.925.9998. www.zentocontemporary.com
Cuisine: Japanese/sushi.
Hours: Sun.-Thurs., 11:30am-10pm; Fri.-Sat., 11:30am-11pm.
Prices: $10-$20.
Sound advice: It's not big enough to make noise.
Atmosphere: Jewel box, shoe box, take your pick.
Service: Friendly.
Food: Sushi is the strength here.

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The last time I stepped through the doors of 138 Chestnut St., I was greeted by a thick haze of sweet-smelling smoke.

A number of gentlemen were gathered around a hookah set just by the front door. Judging from the gray nimbus that clouded the tiny space, they'd been there for quite a while and weren't going anywhere soon. It was all a little much and discouraged me from doing more than picking up a menu and darting out the door to suck up some sweet Old City air. Better the cloying, Drakkar-drenched perfume of an Old City Saturday night than chewing through a solid wall of smoke.

I like a hookah now and then, but in a miniscule storefront like 138 Chestnut, it's an atmospheric bull in a china shop. It seems the dining public agreed and the former tenant Jaba Kabob & Grill packed up its pipes and headed off into the smoky sunset.

Enter BYOB Zento, a minimalist sushi spot that bears no trace of its predecessor.

In place of hookahs and smoke are pristine white walls, a diminutive sushi bar and stacked bamboo wainscoting. Stippled glass light fixtures and a plasma TV accent the otherwise unembellished room. Even the menu is stark white.

Stark and pristine aren't bad things when it comes to sushi. After all, if raw fish is involved, you want everything to be pristine. Zento does a fine job of presenting pristine sushi in a pristine setting. It may not blow your mind, but it certainly offers bang for your buck.

Chef/owner Gunawan Wibisono has made the sushi rounds in Philadelphia, putting in time behind the sushi bar at Kisso and Morimoto before buying Sansom Street's Kami Sushi Express and then opening Zento a few months ago. It seems his Morimoto days were influential, as some of Zento's menu closely hews to the Iron Chef's. Take the new style carpaccio--slivers of whitefish flavored with garlic, ginger and yuzu (a fragrant citrus fruit) and seared off with a drizzle of hot oil--which is served at both places and is equally good at both.

The same goes for toro yellowtail tartares, both prepared with dashi broth, fish eggs (at Morimoto you get caviar, at Zento you get tobiko--Morimoto's is better) and crispy shallots. If you're hankering for tuna pizza--raw maguro tuna, seaweed and spicy mayonnaise piled atop a crispy tortilla--you can satisfy your craving just as well and for a lot less at Zento.

I'd recommend sampling the Peking duck hand roll as well. Chunks of meltingly tender duck marinated in hoisin sauce are wrapped up with rice and lettuce in a sesame seed-flecked soy paper wrapper. It's a little bit Korean barbecue, a little bit sushi and a whole lot of flavor. Shrimp and vegetable tempura is also pleasant, light and crispy.

The specialty sushi rolls are where Zento's originality shines. Feel like a square peg? Perhaps Zento's square sushi will cure what ails ya. Each cube of rice is packed with eel, avocado, tangy plum paste and topped with either tuna or salmon. The Green River roll is filled with toro, more eel and plum paste, and then topped with undulating slivers of avocado that give it its name. The Flaming Dragon is stuffed with spicy tuna and streaked with a fiery spine of tobiko-topped eel and avocado.

Sushi and sashimi are decent for the prices, and the platter--which includes eight pieces of sashimi and eight pieces of sushi--is plenty for two to share. A chirashi sushi platter--where the fish is laid over a bed of rice, rather than individually arranged over molded rice--is a generous selection (of the chef's choice based on availability) of 10 pieces of salmon, tuna, mackerel, yellowtail and striped bass. On one visit the chef offered a special of kanpache (baby yellowtail) and Japanese snapper, both of which were lovely.

Zento offers an iffy selection of entrees from the hot kitchen. Arctic char in teriyaki sauce is unmemorable, while the yosenabe, a watery seafood noodle soup served in a heated bowl, is devoid of flavor. Also considering they were out of both the striped bass and the Kobe beef when we tried to order them, they'd do well to just nix the menu altogether--it's certainly not where their strength lies.

There's not much for dessert--a selection of mochi ice cream (think ice cream encased in a rice flour ravioli), which for some may be an acquired taste. Or head to the adorable Franklin Fountain instead and soak up some of that Old City air.