When it comes to working as a team, the staff at Kamakura Japanese Restaurant have it down pat.Lead by their knife-weilding sushi chef, the group of employees managed to take down a man with a gun who tried to rob the eatery in Champaign, Illinois, on Tuesday night.  Tetsuji Miwa, 39, said he didn't think twice before springing to action as the 23-year-old assailant threatened the hostess with what appeared to be a revolver.'I instantly grabbed my sushi knife, walked up to him, wrapped my arm around his shoulder and asked him what he wanted,' Miwa told The News-Gazette.'He saw the blade, got scared and started running.' Team work: Tetsuji Miwa, 39 (right) sprang into action when an armed robber came into  Kamakura Japanese Restaurant. His co-workers (from left) Yugi Niizuma, Joe Pendzialek (back) and Aichan Mitsuhashi-Aes all helped out Arrested: Clayton Dial, 23, was charged Wednesday with attempted aggravated robbery, intimidation and aggravated battery following his ill-conceived attempt to get cash

Scene of the crime: Kamakura Japanese restaurant Sushi and Steakhouse in Champaign, IllinoisWaitress Aichan Mitsuhashi-Acs saw what was happened and alerted other employees.General manager Yuji Niizuma and assistant manager Joe Pendzialek came running from the kitchen while Mitsuhashi-Acs called 911.'Tet was halfway out the door. We could see him with the knife,' Niizuma told the newspaper. 'We didn't have a choice because he was engaged in the fight.' The three tackled the man in the car park. Pendzialek had grabbed a bar stool on his way out 'and cracked him over the head with it'. While the bandit fought back, the trio were able to restrain him until police arrived.Afterwards, Miwa said he was worried about his special knife.  He told the newspaper: 'It's pretty expensive so I didn't want to damage it or use it. I was telling him, 'Don't make me use this.'As soon as the other two managers came out, I set it down to the ground very carefully because I didn't want to damage my blade.'

Quick-thinking: Assistant manager Joe Pendzialek (left) and waitress Aichan Mitsuhashi-Acs were instrumental in stopping the robber Scene: Kamakura Japanese Restaurant is seen here in a photo from their Facebook pageThe suspect was arrested and has been identified as 23-year-old Clayton Dial of Ogden.He was charged with attempted aggravated robbery, intimidation and aggravated battery.Dial's girflriend, Kelsey Cabellero, 23, was waiting in the carpark in a white van.She fled the scene, but police found her down the road and arrested her.Dial's weapon turned out to be a pellet gun.However the Kamakura staff didn't know that.'I was very confident,' waitress Mitsuhashi-Acs said.'We had the situation under control. 'And the police had a great response time. They were fabulous.'Afterwards, with a kitchen backed with orders, the team went straight back to work.The Japanese delicacy fugu, or blowfish, is so poisonous that the smallest mistake in its preparation could be fatal. But Tokyo's city government is planning to ease restrictions that allow only highly trained and licensed chefs to serve the dish.

Kunio Miura always uses his special knives to prepare fugu - wooden-handled with blades tempered by a swordsmith to a keen edge. sushi online alicanteBefore he starts work in his kitchen they are brought to him by an assistant, carefully stored in a special box. where to buy eel ukMiura-san, as he is respectfully known, has been cutting up blowfish for 60 years but still approaches the task with caution. food delivery shoreditch londonA single mistake could mean death for a customer. sushi online di indonesiaFugu is an expensive delicacy in Japan and the restaurants that serve it are among the finest in the country. In Miura-san's establishment a meal starts at $120 (£76) a head, but people are willing to pay for the assurance of the fugu chef licence mounted on his wall, yellowed now with age.

He is one of a select guild authorised by Tokyo's city government to serve the dish.When he begins work the process is swift, and mercifully out of sight of the surviving fugu swimming in their tank by the restaurant door. First he lays the despatched fish, rather square of body with stubby fins, on its stomach and cuts open the head to removes its brain and eyes. They are carefully placed in a metal tray marked "non-edible". Then he removes the skin, greenish and mottled on the top and sides, white underneath, and starts cutting at the guts."This is the most poisonous part," he says pulling out the ovaries. But the liver and intestines are potentially lethal too. "People say it is 200 times more deadly than cyanide."Twenty-three people have died in Japan after eating fugu since 2000, according to government figures. Most of the victims are anglers who rashly try to prepare their catch at home. A spokesman for the Health and Welfare Ministry struggles to think of a single fatality in a restaurant, though last year a woman was hospitalised after eating a trace of fugu liver in one of Tokyo's top restaurants - not Miura-san's.

Tetrodotoxin poisoning has been described as "rapid and violent", first a numbness around the mouth, then paralysis, finally death. The unfortunate diner remains conscious to the end. There is no antidote."This would be enough to kill you," Miura-san says, slicing off a tiny sliver of fugu ovary and holding it up. Then he carefully checks the poisonous organs on the tray, making sure he has accounted for every one, and tips them into a metal drum locked with a padlock. They will be taken to Tokyo's main fish-market and burned, along with the offcuts from other fugu restaurants.Miura-san's skill is therefore highly prized. Fugu chefs consider themselves the elite of Japan's highly competitive culinary world. He started as an apprentice in a kitchen at the age of 15. Training lasts at least two years but he was not allowed to take the practical test to get a licence until he was 20, the age people become a legal adult in Japan. A third of examinees fail.So proposals by Tokyo's city government to relax the rules have been met with an outcry from qualified chefs.

Coming into effect in October, they would allow restaurants to serve portions of fugu that they have bought ready-prepared off-site."We worked hard to get the licence and had to pass the most difficult exam in Tokyo," says Miura-san. "Under the new rules people will be able to sell fugu after just going to a class and listening for a day. We spent lots of time and money. To get this skill you have to practise by cutting more than a hundred fish and that costs hundreds of thousands of yen."The authorities in Tokyo impose stricter regulations than any other Japanese city. In some, restaurants have already been able to sell pre-prepared fugu for a long time. And even in Tokyo these days, it is available over the internet and in some supermarkets - one reason why officials think the rules need updating.In terms of cost, it is likely fugu would become available in cheaper restaurants and pubs (izakayas). But going to a proper fugu restaurant to eat good wild-caught fish, prepared on-site, is quite a luxury - because of the cost, if nothing else - and also quite an event.

For many, playing the equivalent of Russian roulette at the dinner table is the attraction of the dish.Some report a strange tingling of the lips from traces of the poison, although Miura-san thinks that is unlikely. He also scoffs at the myth that a chef would be honour-bound to commit ritual suicide with his fish knife if he killed a customer. Loss of his licence, a fine, litigation or perhaps prison would be the penalty. Miura-san serves fugu stew, and grilled fugu with teriyaki sauce, but today it is fugu-sashimi on the menu. He carefully slices the fish so thinly that when it is arranged like the petals of a chrysanthemum flower on a large dish the pattern beneath shows through.Raw fugu is rather chewy and tastes mostly of the accompanying soy sauce dip. It is briefly poached in a broth set on a table-top burner - a dish known as shabu-shabu in Japan. The old journalistic cliche when eating unusual foods really does hold true - it tastes rather like chicken. Fugu lovers, though, would say it has a distinctive taste, and, even more importantly, texture.