#33 – TUNA COLLAR at EN JAPANESE BRASSERIE

Once again Time Out New York released their Top 100 Dishes of the year and once again, I’m going to eat my way through every one. And no price point or subway delay will stop me. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100.

I hate making reservations. I know that’s a ridiculous quirk that I need to get over, but I have commitment issues. How do I know what I’m going to want to eat days in advance?

Lately I’ve been going out to eat super early or sitting at the bar. That’s the only way you can get in to some of the hot restaurants in the city without a reservation. And both those options are fine with me. But there are a few dishes on Time Out’s list that will require reservations. One of them was the Tuna Collar at En Japanese Brasserie.

And the reason why this dish cannot be obtained with a casual walk-in or with a drink at the bar is not because the beautiful restaurant is always fully booked, but rather because the tuna collar is only offered once a month at the fish heads, eel bones, and beer dinner. This feast happens on the first Thursday of every month at 9:30pm. The tuna collar isn’t guaranteed to be on the menu, but usually makes an appearance. I got into a serious conversation with the reservationist when I called a month in advance to ensure the dish would be on the $45 buffet. I didn’t want to shell out that kind of money if I wasn’t making a dent in the list.

The day of the dinner, the same reservationist assured me the tuna collar would be served. So we showed up just before 9:30pm and were directed to very uncomfortable stools at a very narrow bar. Without any instructions or introductions, food slowly started making its way to the bar. We were given glasses for unlimited Sapporo refills and like a wedding buffet, a line started forming at the food table.

This dinner is called a “makanai” and is a meal exclusively for restaurant employees in Japan before or after their shift. They’re called family meals in this country and having worked at restaurants for the last 10 years, I’ve experienced my fair share of these. Generally, they’re made with the leftovers and are uninspired and rushed. I’ve heard tales of restaurants with elaborate and delicious family meals, but somehow I’ve never been employed by one of those places.

Chef Abe Hiroki also uses the leftovers (to conserve waste) to create this feast, but the dishes he puts out are far from uninspired and rushed. The food came out in intervals and I was getting a little worried the tuna collar was not going make an appearance after all. But as I nervously surveyed the bar, I grabbed plates of bamboo shoots seasoned with bonito flakes, mixed chirashi (sashimi and rice), a crisp and bitter green salad with a great ponzu dressing, chicken katsu (fried tender cutlet), a bowl of deeply flavored miso soup with sea-bream head, and a pile of crunchy deep fried eel and fluke bones.

The fried bones were the highlight of the meal for me. They had such an unusual texture with a strong crispy exterior. The flavor was a subtle blend of fish and oil, with lots of salty crunch. And once you got through the layer of panko bread, the brittle bones provided even more crunch. These were difficult to stop eating.

The tuna collar took its time, but finally made it out as the grand finale of the meal. A server cut the meat off the bone and served it that way. But I wanted the whole collar to snap photos of and gnaw away at. He had pretty much cleaned the collar dry by the time I got it to the table, but there were still a few little nooks of tuna meat inside the carcass. The meat from the collar had been marinated in sake and miso, so it had sweet and complex notes. The meat itself was fatty and richly flavored.  It was a great end to this unique and adventurous meal, although I couldn’t resist one more helping of those fried bones.

And throughout the meal, we were allowed unlimited Sapporo refills. So with enough beer in me and feeling a bit tipsy, I picked up my phone and started making reservations all over town.

Would En Japanese Brasserie’s Tuna Collar make my Top 100? The meal itself was definitely a highlight of my recent dining experiences and while I preferred the less-refined eel bones, the tuna still had lots of meaty, umami flavors and earns a 7 out of 10.