www.theeunyc.com
Description: European themed gourmet pub-food fails to impress.
Burdie Approved Rating:
Pros: serves the only beer that I can drink
Cons: overwhelming waitstaff
Photo by Mark Peterson/Redux for New York Magazine
Hillsy and I had brunch at EU a couple of weeks ago and decided to try their dinner menu with Fabienne. I decided to give the Daily FIsh & Chips with tartar sauce, Hillsy ordered the $15 Hamburger and Fabienne went for the Steak Tartare with Sea Urchin Sabayon. I was dissapointed with both the meal and the service. I guess my expectations were pretty high, after trying their Serrano, Manchego and Fig butter Panini for brunch a couple of weeks ago. Fish & Chips is probably one of the hardest things to fuck up - fried fish and fries with mayonnaise (even McDonalds can serve a decent Fish Fillet sandwich!) I was expecting a nice crusty, crunchy haddock and thick authentic "chips" but instead I got a fried seafood medley of squid, shrimp and fish accompanied with "frites". With the exception of the fish - the dish was reminiscent of Long Johns Silver's #4. To make matters worse, our waitress (we had about three different staff members attending to us) seemed to be in a hurry to get rid of us (not sure why since the place was almost empty) and quickly cleared our plates while I was still chewing AND had a slice of bread in my hands "are you done?" she asked!
In the political arena, The European Union is a vast, bloated, bureaucratic organization that offers extremely poor value for money unless you happen to be a French farmer who wants to produce barley so that it can sit in a huge warehouse somewhere north of Brussels and slowly rot. With this in mind, the EU restaurant seems to be rather aptly named.
Let's start with the vast and bureaucratic bit. The place is huge (by East Village standards), and when we arrived almost completely empty. The staff outweighed the patrons by about two to one, and the restaurant floor literally seemed to be crawling with buzzing drones in blue and white aprons.
It's widely accepted that the real European Union couldn't organize a stag night in a brothel, and EU didn't disappoint on that front either. After arriving at the unholy hour of 5.15pm - on a Saturday - about four different members of staff buzzed by, brows furrowed, to tell us that the kitchen wasn't open for another 15 minutes. Sensing a diplomatic incident was about to break-out, we were able to negotiate being allowed to sit at a table with a drink until 15 minutes had passed - although at that point I genuinely feared we could succumb to some kind of cross-border skirmish involving us, and the apron-wearing drones.
Let's move to poor value for money. I've always believed that gourmet food was something that you generally couldn't find at any old side-street eaterie. For example, you're not going to find steamed lobster and wild mushrooms in your local 7-11. So when things that you CAN find everywhere - such as hot dogs and chicken wings - are positioned (and priced) as gourmet items, I simply have to indulge my curiosity. So with this in mind, I was immediately drawn to the $15 EU burger which I decided to wash down with a very nice glass of German Bitburger.
If you're paying 15 bucks for a burger you may not expect to have all your senses of taste massaged, but you're definitely within your rights to hope the extra cash will give you a happy ending. Sadly not in this case. The burger was dry, flat and way overcooked for medium. Since there were so many staff just standing around I was hoping that at least one of them would have been able to monitor my cheddar-decoarated slab of meat, but sadly I got the culinary version of the famous French shrug of the shoulders.
Burdie opted for the fish and chips, which was obviously a quiet nod to the English "classic" - but she rather misleadingly received a seafood pick-and-mix of shrimp, squid, and other battered objects - rather than a large piece of cod or haddock, which is the only way fish and chips should be served.
Our friend Fabienne decided to avoid the deep fat fryer entirely, and opted for the steak tartare - probably a more sensible choice on her part, but judging from her reaction there were no fireworks leaping out of her taste buds.
Our food was bought out by a swarm of waiting staff - one person per dish - and I started to wonder if this was simply because they were bored, or if they were attempting to be authentic. It certainly can't be the latter, because in most European countries you're lucky to get one waiter's attention for more than 2 seconds, and if you do it's probably because you have a physical deformity that happens to attract his/her gaze.
We finished it off with a Goat Milk cheesecake, which I have to say was absolutely excellent - creamy, hearty yet retaining a wonderful, delicate eligance. But as I was polishing off the last bite of cheesecake the check arrived, and as I glimpsed at it I realized without doubt this had clear parallels with the real European Union - because at 120 bucks for three people - which consisted of one main each, a single dessert that we all split, and four beers - this place was never going to be challenging the McDonaldas value menu any time soon.
And that was that. As the waiters whisked our plates away en masse, making us feel as if we were intruding on their own private enclave, I realized this place was a little too similar to the real European Union for comfort.
I tried to like EU - i really did. I know it's the right thing to do. I know life **should** be better with it around. But as I left the restaurant that evening, all feelings of closer integration drained away like a fading holiday memory. Will I go back? I don't know - maybe we need a referendum to decide.
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