EN Japanese Brasserie - Review

Intro
EN Japanese Brasserie - Recommended
435 Hudson St, New York 10014
Btwn Leroy & Morton St
Phone: 212-647-9196

Decided to check this place out over the weekend, since I was looking for some light Asian food in the West Village. To my surprise, it was a pretty solid restaurant. The unique thing about this Japanese restaurant is that it serves tapas like dishes. Lots of small dishes to sample for a reasonable price. The place is not blow you away good, but just a pretty decent restaurant. Overall, I give the restaurant an 79/100.

My Menu
1) Freshly Made Scooped Tofu - Recommended
2) Sea Bass Kara Age - Highly Recommended
3) Grilled Squid with Uni Miso - Recommended
4) EN Garlic Shiso Fried Rice - Recommended
5) Spicy Chu Toro Roll - Not Recommended

Dish Comments
1) Expecting a nice soft tofu texture, but instead it was relatively firm. Still a great texture and good flavor with the salt and soy mixture added
2) Great dish here. Sea bass was super flavorful and moist and lightly crispy, not oily.
3) Good, but nothing special
4) Fried rice is very fun. Simple flavors of just garlic, a little oil, and they added seaweed which gave it a nice contrast of flavor and texture
5) When one mentions chu toro, I expect a relatively fatty piece of tuna with some good tuna flavor. This was fatty, but had absolutely no flavor. It was Ok, when dipping into the spicy mayo, but you could have put canned tuna fish instead...also this was $19.

Overall Restaurant Experience (79/100)

• Food 7.7/10 - Everything is pretty good here, nothing great though
  
• Service 8.5/10 - Japanese place. See my other comments...nuff said.
  
• Atmosphere 8/10 - Nice decor - asian motif. High ceilings. Interesting mix of young couples (asian and non-asian), group of guys, as well as younger parents with kids.
  
• Price 8/10 - I think definitely worth the price. Fun food, good atmosphere, good service.
  

Closing Comments
Overall, a definite go to place for going with a large group to sample many dishes. Great price and solid Japanese food. A lot of the sake was average though. Stay from the expensive sushi and sake and it should be a good experience.