n a multi-lingual union of European nations, it's to be expected that there might be some spelling errors. However, when The E.U. on the other side of the ocean opened up shop recently in NYC, the abundance of grammatical errors on the menu acts as evidence enough that there's a broken telephone somewhere in the Atlantic. Why should I believe that their “Bresoala” can hold a candle to true Italian Bresaola, air-cured beef that is often served with arugula and shaved parmigiano? Who’s to say that their “Muscato d’Asti” isn’t some paltry imitation of actual Moscato d’Asti, a sweet Italian dessert-appropriate wine? Such errors, though possibly merely typographical, didn’t leave me wanting to trust this place.

I like the idea behind The E.U.: a best-of, something-for-everybody roundup of European food and drink. The items on Chef Akhtar Nawab's menu range from Waterzooi, a Belgian creamy fish soup, to fish and chips with string beans. The execution of this ambitious undertaking is frustratingly uneven. We began the meal with restaurant’s flight of five “handcrafted artisanal beers” (artisanal, you say?...Guinness?). One of the five, Sixpoint Sweet Action, is American...although in French, E.U. can be an acronym for les Etats-Unis, the United States, which must be what the beer suppliers at The E.U. were thinking when they included it.

The white asparagus appetizer, served with smoked sablefish and smoked roe, was stringy when cut, but tender when eaten. The mayonnaise-y sauce was a tasty addition, but the fish knocked the whole dish down a notch. White asparagus is very popular in Europe, particularly in Germany, where it is called spargel. There is even a town, Schwetzingen, which considers itself the “Asparagus Capital of the World” and holds a yearly Spargelfest, where they crown their very own Spargel Queen. Sablefish is native to the north Pacific Ocean, and most of it is exported to Japan—not to Europe. The two flavors simply were not made to commingle (as if the Germany/Japan alliance in WWII wasn't evidence enough).

We took our chances with the misnomered Bresaola, which was decent, but came only with bread and not the usual accompaniments. My main course was baked rigatoni with milk-braised Berkshire pork (I’m assuming, for consistency’s sake, that they’re talking Windsor Castle and not Tanglewood), escarole, and lemon. The pork appeared to have gotten lost on its way to a barbecue and stumbled into a bowl of pasta; it was tender and would have been terrific pulled and sauced on a bun, but didn’t have the body to stand up to the pasta. Overall, the dish was a disappointment.