Surviving sushi with the Yakuza

Somewhere along a nondescript part of Kantstraße in Charlottenburg, there’s a seriously dodgy-looking place, covered in graffiti, that you’d otherwise want to cross the road to avoid. I’m glad we didn’t though, because it’s home to 893 Ryotei, one of the best sushi restaurants Germany has to offer. 893 is a losing hand in the Japanese card game oichokabu, a combination that when pronounced in Japanese sounds like yattsu-ku-san, which is where the Yakuza got its name from.

So I’m inside a mafia-connected street bar in the middle of a European city and I’m thinking ordering room service may have been a better idea. Thank god I didn’t. This isn’t the sushi doled out to us at fast food joints. No California rolls here, just beautiful, scrumptious pieces of seafood and red meat finger art that goes down smooth … and fast. Just don’t order the veal heart skewers, please. That’s not right.