THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED E.J.'s Brasserie

THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED E.J.'s Brasserie Restaurant Review:

Another collaboration between executive chef Erling Jensen (see Erling Jensen: The Restaurant) and restaurateur Jimmy Ishii, E.J.’s taps Jensen’s Danish roots. While the exterior is a nondescript building in a suburban parking lot, the interior has been turned into a casually elegant, modernist setting in blue and yellow. It’s a strange yet surpassingly comfortable place for creamy smoked salmon, sweet and sour shrimp salad, ground pork and onion meatballs and hearty, rustic soups. Not surprisingly with the Scandinavian background, the restaurant is ground zero for excellent fish entrées and full-flavored meat dishes like sautéed veal cutlets in hunter’s sauce and venison osso buco. Lately, new chef Spencer McMillin (ex-Café Samovar and River Terrace) has taken the menu several strides away from the strictly Scandinavian toward the eclectic Continental with even more gratifying results. Lunches are among the best in the region, offering such selections as a risotto with asparagus, mushrooms, dried tomatoes and sage butter sauce. A splendid roster of desserts includes a vanilla ginger crème caramel tart with mango sorbet. The wine list is thoroughly conventional; the emphasis is on European-style beers.