EN Japanese Brasserie

TriBeCa is becoming the mecca for innovative Japanese cuisine, first with Nobu, now Megu and EN Japanese Brasserie. My companion and I had wanted to dine at EN ever since reading about their housemade tofu, produced on a movie-like schedule every night (6, 7:30, 9, 10:30 and 11:30 p.m.).

We were led to a communal table around a sand garden lit with votives. (There are also private rooms, a sushi bar, large tables and a separate bar and lounge area.) After bathing our hands in hot towels, we proceeded to be completely overwhelmed by the menu, which was divided into: tofu/yuba appetizers, small cold plates, small hot plates, large grill and kitchen plates, rice and noodles, and sushi/sashimi. The drink selection was equally overwhelming, including alcoholic beverages made from barley, sweet potato, sugar cane, buckwheat and rice in addition to wine and sake. (We settled on the non-alcoholic barley tea, Japanese peach juice and aloe juice.)

There were so many intriguing-sounding dishes... garlic shiso fried rice, miso-grilled black cod... that we gave up on trying to decide between them and ordered the 7-course omakase for two. The waiter informed us that although each course would be chosen especially by the chef, any dishes that we were particularly attached to could be included. I knew we would want the seared belly of tuna, but that was the only decision I made.

Our first course was a trio of cold appetizers: gelatinous green konnyaku in a bracing miso vinaigrette, creamy fresh tofu custard which we splashed with ginger soy sauce, and thin slices of Kyoto-style yuba "sashimi". The yuba, which is the byproduct of making soymilk, had the chewy consistency of part-skim mozzarella and a mild milk taste.

After this refreshing course, we were served a bowl of mugwort wheat gnocchi in a daikon radish and ginger broth. Then, we received what was perhaps the highlight of my night: the chu-toro course! Five seared slabs of fatty belly tuna were hot pink rainbows of pure pleasure. Slightly charred on the outside, on the inside they were meaty and meltingly tender.

The next item on the agenda was oyster teriyaki: a plump oyster, chosen for its extra-large liver, sat atop a dense potato-like daikon cylinder.

By this time we were already full, but there were still three courses left! The two courses before dessert were a grill-your-own Wagyu beef and a sushi course. It was fun to grill the tender pieces of marbled Wagyu on a hot stone for 5 seconds on each side, and the accompanying matsutake mushrooms (apparently prized as an aphrodisiac!) were unique and flavorful.

The sushi course, which arrived with a bowl of crab miso soup, was a meal in itself. There were five pieces of sushi, including creamy, sweet sea urchin, fresh-water eel, tuna, snapper and yellowtail, and a few pieces of cucumber eel maki. Each piece of fish was sparklingly fresh.

Finally, it was time for the generous dessert: soba tea pudding. The rich milk custard was faintly nutty with the taste of buckwheat. On another occasion, I might have enjoyed something more elaborate such as wagashi (multi-colored Japanese pastries), but this epic meal was best ended with simplicity.

EN Japanese Brasserie: 435 Hudson St., (212) 647-9196.