EN Japanese Brasserie

The sign, the low lighting, the friendly, soft-spoken Japanese waitstaff, and the menu - was I back at Cha Cha Hana in Tokyo? No, I was in New York, at EN Japanese Brasserie, thanks to a spot on recommendation from our friend Hana, but boy did it bring back wonderful memories of modern izakaya at its best in Tokyo.

We ordered their special homemade tofu (we chose to warm, rather than cold) with a special sauce (tasted like soy and dashi), cold chawanmushi topped with uni (seasonal dish), miso black cod, hot stone grilled organic chicken, shima aji and kanpachi sashimi, braised pork belly, and finished with their popular ice cream trio.

The tofu was quite possibly the best tofu either Mark or I had ever eaten. It was super soft and smooth, with a perfectly light tofu flavor complemented by a light, but flavorful sauce. There was a lot of it, we ate it all, and it went down so, so easy. A very auspicious start to the meal.

This untraditional chawanmushi was (again) perfectly light. Having just come in from the cold, I would have preferred a steaming hot chawanmushi, but completely understand why it had to be cold (nobody wants warm uni). The steamed egg and uni was a surprisingly complementary combo, and the uni was nice and fresh. Great dish if you like uni - even better if it's warm outside.

The miso black cod was a delicious standard, as was the kakuni (braised pork belly), particularly with some steamed rice, leaving us just enough space for a light dessert.

You get to choose three flavors for three scoops, out of six or so different options. Since the black sesame ice cream was mentioned numerous times on Yelp, and we both love black sesame, we went with two scoops of black sesame and one scoop of fig, which just sounded really good. The black sesame was good, but the fig was even better.

We washed all of this down with tea. I think it was oolong. It was very good, whatever it was.