KUCHI Mitte — Restaurant in Berlin

Quintessence:

The food was mediocre. The meat was overcooked and hence a bit dry. Our waiter's harsh tone made us feel uncomfortable.

In detail:

My friend and I went to KUCHI Mitte on a weekday in the afternoon around 4pm. When we entered the restaurant we were greeted, but somehow they started speaking in English with us instead of German. I don't know if that's a common thing to do when they see people with an Asian background, despite having an Asian background themselves. As there weren't many guests we could choose freely where to sit.

We ordered a ginger tea, a yuzu soda, and two dishes from their lunch special (three different kind of meat skewers with pork, beef and chicken and a skewer with pepper). All lunch special deals come along with a miso soup unless the dish itself is a soup. Moreover we ordered two special skewers (chicken skin and fish balls) of which the minimum order is two skewers.

The food was mediocre. I felt like every single skewer was overcooked and hence dry. Moreover I did not appreciate their way of presenting our food. The special skewers as well as our main dish skewers were placed on top of a lettuce leaf, lots of thinly sliced daikon and were sprinkled with some sauce. Our rice came in an extra bowl, but somehow they thought they needed to garnish our rice by sprinkling some kind of sauce (soy sauce or teriaki sauce) unevenly on top of it.

I did not appreciate their service either. The waiter who took our order was okay, but the waiter who served us our dishes was kind of harsh in the way he was speaking. The tone wasn't friendly at all and the way he verbalised his messages in a very short and abrupt way (e.g. here, there, etc.) made us feel uneasy.

As for their furniture I have to say that I did not like it much either. You sit on blue padded benches. Not that it's uncomfortable sitting on those patted benches but that colour just...

Full disclosure - I'm not the biggest fan of sushi.

If you like Japanese flavours and sushi, then I think this is an awesome place for you.

I started with the miso soup special which was pretty good. The salmon in it was spectacular!

The standard sushi plate featured in the picture is missing 2 pieces of California roll because we ate them before taking the pic (I always forget because I'm so excited when the food comes!). It was pretty good even to a non-sushi lover like me.

The Lost Monk Wok dish was really good too. Loved the flavours and the portion size.

But my favourite of the night and the reason that I will go back even though I'm not a sushi person is the mango tapioca pudding. It was spectacular! (Pic attached)

The staff was outstanding. They were SMASHED with customers that night. ( I would advise reserving before going). They forgot a wine order twice but I really wasn't mad because I could see that they were truly, super duper busy. I told them I really didn't mind but they still gave us the dessert and the last glass of wine for free.

So all in all, definitely...

We went here with family, three adults and three children, and they refused to give us tap water. They literally refused to give CHILDREN water. Not only that, but they told us the rule was one drink -- one 50ml glass of water. So we ordered a bottle of wine for the table, but they still refused to give us water. The staff was EXTREMELY rude. Service in Berlin is never very good, but this was abysmal. The girl kept interrupting us while we ordered saying "only one person at a time can speak" (reminder, we had three children), and refusing to take our order unless we complied with her commands. She was rolling her eyes at us the entire time and then I saw her going to another waitress and point at our table and give a number of faces, plus eye rolls, clearly showing she was telling her something about our table. Her behaviour was aweful for a waitress, but even simply as a person, her tone and manners were unacceptable.

The rudeness was unbearable, I would NEVER go back here and will warn...