Macaroni Bellissime - A Food and Travel Blog: En Japanese Brasserie

A few weeks ago my fiance and I hosted a small engagement dinner with our close friends at EN Japanese Brasserie. It was a quite a journey to select a restaurant for this event, but in the end EN won out because of its great quality food and classy ambiance. Honestly, I was a bit nervous and apprehensive before the dinner, but EN has completely won my heart with the dinner they served.

One of the great things about EN that many other japanese restaurants in NYC did not offer was its private rooms. Who wants to struggle to be heard against the other loud patrons? For $75-$100, they have uniquely decorated rooms for a more intimate dinner experience. We selected the Tatami room. It's traditional style tatami seating, but with a lowered space underneath the table so no one has to sit on their feet.

Entrance to EN Tatami room I

The staff at EN were so accomodating to our needs. I requested customized menu's and they happily obliged. They even personalized each individual menu with our guest's names! It made seating much quicker and easier.

Table setting with personalized menus

For a corkage fee you can bring in your own alcohol

Sake

It's no small fee, but if you can find a big enough bottle it will be a better deal than ordering a bottle off their menu. Their cocktails are actually quite delish. At our last visit I enjoyed the pineapple with sake, it was made with the freshly juiced pineapples!

Now finally, the food:

The set menus are served semi sharing style. Everyone gets their own portion but served on communal dishes.

Obanzai - Kyoto Style Appetizer

Unfortu, I was too busy stuffing my face to note the what these appetizers were. I know the red ones are tomatoes in dashi and the bottom bowl is some kind of bean curd.

Sashimi served with fresh wasabi

The wasabi served at EN are freshly made, so if you mix it into your soy sauce there will be chunks of horseradish in your dish. A foodie friend remarked that you can tell whether a japanese restaurant is any good by whether they use fresh wasabi or from the tube.

Sea Bass Kara-Age

This sea bass was marinated in sake and fried. Yum! <3 fried. For fried fish, it was light and delish.

Miso Black Cod with Daikon

Miso black cod is a fairly common dish at Japanese restaurants. EN's version is tender and flaky. My first time tasting this dish at EN, it had a crispy skin which everyone raved about. This time however the skin was soft, which was a bit of a let down, but still better than Matsuri's version.

Roasted Duck

Roasted duck served with radish and ponzu. I'm not a big fan of duck, but I tried this anyways. It tasted like chinese roast beef, which tastes good but really isn't anything special.

Freshly made tofu

This dish is what EN is famous for. They make their own tofu at 6:00, 7:30, 9:00, and 10:30 nightly. You can choose to have it served warm or chilled served with wari-joyu, which tastes like a more flavorful soy sauce. I think the traditional way is to serve it warm. It's so silky, but has more depth than the packaged silken tofu you can buy at the supermarket.

Kakuni

Kakuni is described on the menu as "braised Berkshire pork belly in sansho miso, with a boiled egg, spinach, & daikon radish." I believe at this point in the dinner I was so full I couldn't even bring myself to eat the pork belly. I did try some of the daikon, egg, and spinach. This and the previous duck dish really tasted more like traditional chinese food.

Unagi Maze Gohan

This dish is eel with rice with some numbing spices that kinda hurt my tongue. It wasn't so appealing that night due to the abundance of food already in my stomach, but was sooo good for breakfast the next day with some tabasco sauce.

Green Tea Ice Cream

The set menu dessert was the house ice cream, which was green tea. Tastes great but nothing special. I hear they have special seasonal ice cream flavors, like fig, that are really great. Hope to try that one day.

So to completely overdo the food consumption we also ordered a cake from Lady M. EN has a special offer with them, where you can order a Lady M cake for dinner for an additional delivery and serving fee. The one we chose was a green tea mille feuille- hundred layer crepe cake held together with creme.