Tori-Katsu Berlin — Restaurant in Berlin

OK ... I am conflicted about this one. Tori Katsu or Kaiza Back (Tori Katsu is basically the main food they serve) is one of the oldest Japanese fast food joints in town. It has a strange, somewhat rundown interior with walls filled with notes, recipes and scribbles in bad and often hilarious japanese-german translations. The service is forthcoming (it's selfservice however) and the small room and in the summer the outside perimeter is always packed. And since the Palasseum is right around the corner, it is often packed with people from middle-eastern countries, which is a fantastic vibe. You have a decades old Japanese fast-food joint with badly translated german descriptions of Japanese food and the conversations in the restaurant is a mix of japanese, arabic, turkish and german. IT'S SO MUCH FUN!

So why am I conflicted? Well ... you have to like the food. Or you have to rearrange your expectation what you would consider Japanese food ... that's probably more accurate. The main food, Tory Katsu, is simply a large piece (or two smaller pieces) of fried chicken. Served with rice and drowned in sauce (you can pick the sauce). That's basically it. There is no trick behind it. No fancy stuff, no Japanese elegance. I don't even think they have chopsticks there. It's a huge chunk of fried chicken, rice and sauce. As side-dish: Krautsalat - cabbage salad.

You could find that in a german restaurant somewhere in the country. The difference is: its Japanese. It's not hard to see why this fast food joint flourished in the sixties. It's the most german Japanese food I ever ate. It's the best of both worlds boiled down (or fried in this case) to the basic minimum. Fried chicken, rice, sauce.

And I like it.

For me, it's not something I'd eat every day, but now and then just digging into a platter of this steaming mix of multicultural bliss is fantastic. And it's cheap!

Would I recommend it to travel through the whole city to go there? No. But if you are in the area, if you have a lot of hunger and if you are sick of either over-the-top deconstructed hipster food, Curry Wurst, Shawarma or Döner and long for something simple and direct and filling: Yes. Go there. Experience it. You won't regret it - or you will - but at the bare minimum you have something...

This place is sort of a marketing cheat, it is not an authentic Japanese katsu restaurant, and also not a clean or a friendly place either. Apparently, it used to be owned by a Japanese cook, which was visibly reflected in the adorable, 80's style interiors, with lots of cute little details. HOWEVER, the restaurant was apparently sold to someone else, now the staff is Vietnamese. I don't know how was the food before, but now it is just a regular, European schnitzel - not a katsu. It is made with breadcrumbs instead of panko coating, the meat is not marinated, and the rice is very similar to rice you can find in German canteens/mensa - very far from Japanese quality, texture and taste. Although it still tastes ok, the overall feeling of advertising as an "authentic Japanese restaurant with a long tradition", but serving an average schnitzel with questionable MGS based sauces that you wouldn't find in a katsu shop in Japan, felt like a scam to me. You could also easily tell this is not an authentic Japanese restaurant right after entering the place, when staff does not pay attention to the guests at all - no hello, no goodbye, the cashier doesn't inform you you should wait a second - he's just doing his stuff in front of you for a long while, as if you wouldn't have been standing there. The cashier was also scolding other staff in an aggressive manner that was a cherry on the top of the chaotic and stressful atmosphere in this restaurant. The food and the atmosphere are closer to a typical Asia Imbiss -affordable fast food made for European taste, rather than to an actual Japanese...

This is a very settled and popular spot. We've come for lunch on the weekend and it's been great. Completely humble, down to earth traditional eatery with their own dish inventions. We ordered the chicken katsu curry and the Teri ramen which I believe has the basis of hot and sour soup. It was interesting, my bad choice for my child but we have it a really good try eating a third of it. The chicken is super crunchy and everything seems very traditionally made. This place is really committed, and keeps running like a machine. Take change happens generally after 30 mins to 45 mins. They are busy and it smells good. We enjoyed it. I'd...